Staging West German Democracy: Governmental PR Films and the Democratic Imaginary, 1953–1963 9781501347108, 9781501347139, 9781501347122

Table of contents :
Cover page
Series page
Title page
Copyright page
Epigraph
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction Governmental PR in the “Chancellor Films”: A Sociopolitical Archeology of the Adenauer Period
Precursors of the PR Films: Newsreel, Kulturfilm, and Propaganda
Political PR as Special Case of Propaganda in the West German Context
Reading the PR Films as a Sociopolitical Archeology of the Adenauer Years
PR Films as “Deliberate Combination of Image and Word”
PR Films as Products of the West German Newsreel Industry: Definitions and Distinctions
The Deutsche Wochenschau as the Preferred Producer of Government PR
The Origins of this Study
The Archival Situation
The Selection of Archival Material
The State of the Research
The Structure of this Study
One Foundational Narratives
Introduction
The Road to Nationhood
The Deutsche Wochenschau as an Instrument of Nation-Building
The Federal Government’s PR Needs: Managing Conflicting Desires
Staging Democracy: Promoting Foundational Values through Adenauer
Staging Democracy: The PR Films’ Underlying Foundational Values
Two The Deutsche Wochenschau as “Government Channel”
Introduction
The Need to Exert an Influence: Adenauer’s Views on the West German Media Landscape
The Founding of the Federal Press Office
The “Büro Otto Lenz” and its Concept of Political PR
The Founding of the Deutsche Wochenschau through the Federal Government
The PR Films’ Production Process
Conclusion: The PR Films as “Government Channel”
Three Stability Discourse: The US State Visit Films
Introduction
Humble Beginnings of a Partnership: A Man Advocates for his People (1953)
Diplomatic Routine has Arrived: America Revisited (1955) and Aside of Diplomatic Protocol (1955)
Diplomacy, Seemingly Eye-to-Eye : Partners in Freedom (1957)
Rewriting the US from Occupier to Cold War Ally: Visit of Trust (1959)
A Meeting among Friends and Family: Welcome Dr. Adenauer (1961)
“Let Them Come to Berlin”: Adenauer’s Departure from the PR Films in The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy (1963)
Conclusion: Advertising a Political Path Towards Security, Stability, and Prosperity
Four Cold Warrior Discourse: The Return of the “Hero-Father” in Meeting in the Kremlin (1956)
Introduction
Planning the Report on a “Trip into the Unknown”
Conclusion: A Failed PR Film?
Five The Reconciliation Discourse: The PR Films on the Rapprochement with France
Introduction
Staging Performative Acts of Reconciliation at Franco-German Memory Spaces
Onward Towards Europe: Franco-German Relations in 1962
Staging Reconciliation in Two Nations Reconcile (1962)
Staging Reconciliation in The Path into the Future (1962)
Conclusion: Documents of the Manipulation of Collective memory
Six The Discourse of Connectedness: Adenauer’s Bonn as Reluctant, yet Effective “World City”
Introduction
Thematic Precursors and Contemporaries
Bonn as Effective, yet Provisional Capital: Visiting Bonn (1961)
Highlighting the Federal Republic’s International Stature: Koblenzer Strasse 99–103 (1961/3)
Conclusion: Two Complementary Views on Bonn
Seven The Father of the Nation Discourse: Building Adenauer’s Legacy
Introduction
Celebrating the Father of the Nation: The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday (1961) as Filmic Tribute
Preparing for Adenauer’s Leaving Office: The Legacy Projects
In the Service of the Fatherland (1963): Adenauer’s Anticlimactic Goodbye
Conclusion: Staging Personal Tribute and Political Legacyon Film
Conclusion Staging West German Democracy Through PR Films
List of Illustrations
Archival Records Consulted
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

New Directions in German Studies

Vol. 24

Series Editor:

IMKE MEYER Professor of Germanic Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago

Editorial Board: KATHERINE ARENS Professor of Germanic Studies, University of Texas at Austin ROSWITHA BURWICK Distinguished Chair of Modern Foreign Languages Emerita, Scripps College RICHARD ELDRIDGE Charles and Harriett Cox McDowell Professor of Philosophy, Swarthmore College ERIKA FISCHER-LICHTE Professor Emerita of Theater Studies, Freie Universität Berlin CATRIONA MACLEOD Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in the Humanities and Professor of German, University of Pennsylvania STEPHAN SCHINDLER Professor of German and Chair, University of South Florida HEIDI SCHLIPPHACKE Associate Professor of Germanic Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago ANDREW J. WEBBER Professor of Modern German and Comparative Culture, Cambridge University SILKE-MARIA WEINECK Professor of German and Comparative Literature, University of Michigan

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DAVID WELLBERY LeRoy T. and Margaret Deffenbaugh Carlson University Professor, University of Chicago SABINE WILKE Joff Hanauer Distinguished Professor for Western Civilization and Professor of German, University of Washington JOHN ZILCOSKY Professor of German and Comparative Literature, University of Toronto

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Volumes in the series: Vol. 1. Improvisation as Art: Conceptual Challenges, Historical Perspectives by Edgar Landgraf Vol. 2. The German Pícaro and Modernity: Between Underdog and Shape-Shifter by Bernhard Malkmus Vol. 3. Citation and Precedent: Conjunctions and Disjunctions of German Law and Literature by Thomas O. Beebee Vol. 4. Beyond Discontent: ‘Sublimation’ from Goethe to Lacan by Eckart Goebel Vol. 5. From Kafka to Sebald: Modernism and Narrative Form edited by Sabine Wilke Vol. 6. Image in Outline: Reading Lou Andreas-Salomé by Gisela Brinker-Gabler Vol. 7. Out of Place: German Realism, Displacement, and Modernity by John B. Lyon Vol. 8. Thomas Mann in English: A Study in Literary Translation by David Horton Vol. 9. The Tragedy of Fatherhood: King Laius and the Politics of Paternity in the West by Silke-Maria Weineck Vol. 10. The Poet as Phenomenologist: Rilke and the New Poems by Luke Fischer Vol. 11. The Laughter of the Thracian Woman: A Protohistory of Theory by Hans Blumenberg, translated by Spencer Hawkins Vol. 12. Roma Voices in the German-Speaking World by Lorely French Vol. 13. Vienna’s Dreams of Europe: Culture and Identity beyond the Nation-State by Katherine Arens Vol. 14. Thomas Mann and Shakespeare: Something Rich and Strange edited by Tobias Döring and Ewan Fernie Vol. 15. Goethe’s Families of the Heart by Susan E. Gustafson

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Vol. 16. German Aesthetics: Fundamental Concepts from Baumgarten to Adorno edited by J. D. Mininger and Jason Michael Peck Vol. 17. Figures of Natality: Reading the Political in the Age of Goethe by Joseph D. O’Neil Vol. 18. Readings in the Anthropocene: The Environmental Humanities, German Studies, and Beyond edited by Sabine Wilke and Japhet Johnstone Vol. 19 Building Socialism: Architecture and Urbanism in East German Literature, 1955–1973 by Curtis Swope Vol. 20. Ghostwriting: W. G. Sebald’s Poetics of History by Richard T. Gray Vol. 21. Stereotype and Destiny in Arthur Schnitzler’s Prose: Five Psycho-Sociological Readings by Marie Kolkenbrock Vol. 22. Sissi’s World: The Empress Elisabeth in Memory and Myth edited by Maura E. Hametz and Heidi Schlipphacke Vol. 23. Posthumanism in the Age of Humanism: Mind, Matter, and the Life Sciences after Kant edited by Edgar Landgraf, Gabriel Trop, and Leif Weatherby Vol. 24. Staging West German Democracy: Governmental PR Films and the Democratic Imaginary, 1953–1963 by Jan Uelzmann

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Staging West German Democracy Governmental PR Films and the Democratic Imaginary, 1953–1963

Jan Uelzmann

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BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Inc 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in the United States of America 2019 Copyright © Jan Uelzmann, 2019 Cover design by Andrea Federle-Bucsi Cover image: “Konrad Adenauer Celebrates 84th Birthday,” 1960. Photo © Kurt Rohwedder, courtesy of Picture Alliance. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Inc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN:

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For Berna, Cem, and Kaya.

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Contents

Acknowledgments

x

Introduction. Governmental PR in the “Chancellor Films”: A Sociopolitical Archeology of the Adenauer Period

1

1 Foundational Narratives

33

2 The Deutsche Wochenschau as “Government Channel”

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3 Stability Discourse: The US State Visit Films

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4 Cold Warrior Discourse: The Return of the “Hero-Father” in Meeting in the Kremlin (1956)

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5 The Reconciliation Discourse: The PR Films on the Rapprochement with France

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6 The Discourse of Connectedness: Adenauer’s Bonn as Reluctant, yet Effective “World City”

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7 The Father of the Nation Discourse: Building Adenauer’s Legacy

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Conclusion. Staging West German Democracy Through PR Films

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List of Illustrations Archival Records Consulted Bibliography Index

317 319 323 333

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Acknowledgments

Writing this book would not have been possible without the support and encouragement that a number of people have generously provided me with during the last few years. At the University of Texas at Austin, I am especially indebted to Janet Swaffar for our many inspiring conversations about the postwar period, her constructive criticism of my ideas, her astute editorial advice, and most importantly the insightful comments she offered on drafts of these chapters. I am truly grateful for her friendship and generous support. Katherine Arens has equally been an invaluable source of support and advice. I am very grateful for her inspiring comments, guidance, and encouragement while this book took shape. Quite a few years ago now, while I was a graduate student at UT, Philip Broadbent, Werner Krauss, Matthias Rothe, and Per Urlaub have acted as an important sounding board for some of my ideas and approaches about the Adenauer period that eventually found their way into this book. While at UT and beyond, Sabine Hake has stirred my fascination with the founding discourses of the Federal Republic and film. I truly appreciate the inspiring discussions we have had from then on forward, which left a lasting mark on my thinking about the Adenauer period. At the Georgia Institute of Technology, I would like to thank Anna Westerstahl Stenport, who read and offered her advice on earlier versions of these chapters. I am also grateful for the financial support I received through the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech in the form of a 2014 research grant that allowed me to travel to study archives in Germany. The School of Modern Languages has also sponsored the research in this book by means of a research leave in the fall of 2013 and a departmental travel grant in the summer of 2015. I would especially like to thank my colleagues Britta Kallin, Bettina Cothran, Michael Wiedorn, Osvaldo Cleger, and Paul Alonso for supporting my endeavors through their collegiality and friendship. I would also like to thank my students for the many stimulating discussions we continue to have together about the early years of the Federal Republic.

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Acknowledgments

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Invitations to present on my book as it took form have also contributed to these chapters gaining further shape due to the feedback I received from colleagues. I am therefore very grateful to Mariana Ivanova for inviting me to present on aspects of this book in the form of an invited lecture at Miami University, Ohio in November 2017. I would also like to thank Tobias Hochscherf for inviting me to the IAMHIST Symposium “Winning Peace: Reconstruction and Democratization after WWII” in January of 2018 in New Orleans. I am likewise indebted to Jennifer Kapczynski and Caroline Kita for organizing The Arts of Democratization Symposium on postwar democratization in West Germany at Washington University Saint Louis in April of 2018. Their invitation allowed me to present central ideas of this book in front of an interdisciplinary audience of postwar researchers (just in time so that I could be back home when my son Kaya was born on the same night that I returned from Saint Louis). During the research for this book in Germany, a number of people have graciously offered their experience, expertise, and advice. I am very grateful to Manfred Purzer, former Editor in Chief of the Deutsche Wochenschau, for agreeing to be interviewed by me in 2015. During my many visits to the Deutsche Wochenschau Archive in Hamburg between 2009 and 2013, Susanne Serowiecki always welcomed me warmly, pointed me in the direction of material, and patiently answered the many questions I had. I also would like to thank Dr. Tankred Howe, Heike Meier, and Bernd Schmelzling of the Deutsche Wochenschau Archive. I am indebted to Beatrix Haußmann and Michael Weins of the German Federal Archive, and to Dr. Holger Löttel and Andreas Polzin of the Adenauerhaus archive. My thanks also go to Dr. Angela KellerKühne, Anna Hallauer, and Michael Kaufmann of the Archiv der Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in St. Augustin. In transforming my manuscript into a finished book, I also was able to count on the experienced help of several people. During the writing process, Paulette Richards edited the language of an early version of this manuscript. At Bloomsbury, I would like to thank my series editor Imke Meyer for her enthusiastic and warm-hearted support from early on. I am indebted to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive criticism. I am also grateful to Editorial Director Haaris Naqvi, Katherine De Chant, and Amy Martin for their invaluable help and support in bringing this project to conclusion. My thanks go also to Paul King for making the copy-editing process a pleasure. Lastly, the dauting undertaking of such a study has been made so much easier through the support, much-welcome distraction, and most importantly encouragement I received from my family. My parents Wolfgang and Renate Ülzmann and my brother Nils provided

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Acknowledgments

me with all of the above. My sons Cem and Kaya, in their young curiosity about the world, fill my heart with joy. Finally, I would like to thank Berna Gueneli. Without her words of encouragement, her professional expertise, and most importantly her loving support, this book could not have been finished, but I owe so much more to her than that.

Introduction Governmental PR in the “Chancellor Films”: A Sociopolitical Archeology of the Adenauer Period

In the summer of 1952, a team of the West German newsreel Deutsche Wochenschau1 filmed the first federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer (1949–63), at his private residence in Rhöndorf, across the Rhine from the state’s new capital Bonn. The resulting, unedited raw material opens with long and medium shots of Adenauer in a gray suit, strolling through his terraced garden, tending to his roses. It eventually settles on a scene portraying Adenauer with a dog in a long shot on the backyard deck of his house, overlooking the scenic Siebengebirge Mountains of the Rhine valley. Next, Adenauer is shown examining a Christian devotional painting depicting “Christ as Man of Sorrows,”2 followed by several unsuccessful attempts by

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The company was founded under the name “Neue Deutsche Wochenschau” in 1949 and changed this name to “Deutsche Wochenschau GmbH” in 1955. The newsreel that the Deutsche Wochenschau company produced, however, retained the brand name Neue Deutsche Wochenschau. For the sake of consistency and readability, to avoid confusion for the reader, and since most films discussed were made after 1955, I will use the name “Deutsche Wochenschau” throughout, unless the implications of the naming are addressed. According to Heinz Kisters, the painting is entitled “Christ as Man of Sorrows” (“Christus als Schmerzensmann”). It depicts “Christ emerging from the tomb and displaying his wounds with a harrowing gesture. He bows his head, while the blood flows from the side wound and the hand wound.” It is attributed to an unknown “French master, around 1420 AD.” Heinz Kisters, Adenauer als Kunstsammler (Munich: Lichtenberg Verlag, 1970), 58. I am indebted to Andreas Polzin of the Adenauerhaus archive for identifying the painting through this reference.

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Staging West German Democracy

Figure 0.1 Adenauer’s face reflected over the painting “Christ as Man of Sorrows.” Adenauer in Private (Adenauer privat, Deutsche Wochenschau (unreleased), 1952). German Federal Archive. Adenauer to make the dog sit by his chair.3 With the dog finally dismissed, the next shots portray Adenauer studying the painting with a magnifying glass. After some experimentation with camera angles, exposure, and framing, the cameraman finally seems to have found what he was looking for: framed over the chancellor’s shoulder, this shot shows Adenauer’s face clearly reflected over the image of Jesus Christ in the frame’s center (4:41).4 The cameraman’s multiple attempts at situating this shot make very clear that the superimposition of Adenauer’s face over the image of Christ was certainly not a coincidental effect, but rather a carefully conceived composition, and one in which Adenauer participated. That the material ultimately remained unreleased can easily be attributed to the scene’s heavy-handed symbolism, suggesting in subsequent viewing an unfitting parallelism between Adenauer and Jesus Christ. It could readily be interpreted as portraying Adenauer as “redeemer of the Germans” — a symbolism that was sure to offend at least part of the new chancellor’s devout following. As a devotional image, the Man of Sorrows alludes to the deprivations and pain Germans perceived themselves enduring on the long road to reconstruction and recovery.

3

4

All translations from the German original concerning the films’ titles, their voice-over commentary, German archival sources, and German secondary literature, are mine, unless noted. Except for German secondary sources, I will provide the German original in parenthesis for film titles, and a footnote for the film commentary and archival sources. Adenauer in Private (unreleased) (Adenauer Privat [unveröffentlicht]), Deutsche Wochenschau Archive 1952.

Introduction

3

In retrospect, the scene may have been an attempt to depict the Adenauer government’s recently won limited sovereignty under the Occupation Statute of 1949 and the first signs of an economic upturn as the beginnings of a “resurrection” of West Germany from devastation. Adenauer in many ways carried the hopes and ambitions of West Germans at that time. In spite of the fact that this particular scene disappeared in the archives,5 its elaborate staging, in and of itself, casts a telling light on the extent of the Deutsche Wochenschau’s complicity in creating celebratory images of Adenauer on the newsreel screen. This image can also be seen as a blueprint for several toned down ecclesiastic symbolisms around Adenauer that appear in several of the films analyzed in this book. These never liken Adenauer directly with Jesus, but allude to aspects of his personality that could be used to lend the federal chancellor traits of a savior figure in less obvious fashion. As an early and unrefined example of the Deutsche Wochenschau’s efforts to create celebratory film coverage of Adenauer, this particular “superimposed” image encapsulates the main topic of this book. It analyzes government-commissioned PR (public relations) films from the Adenauer years (1949–63) that focus on the Federal Republic’s foreign policy, on Konrad Adenauer as the Federal Republic’s charismatic chancellor, and on the newly-established West German capital Bonn. The government-controlled Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel company produced these films for the Federal Press Office (Presse und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung) alongside its regular output that, among other things, included the newsreels Neue Deutsche Wochenschau and Welt im Bild, between 1953 and 1963. The PR films can be distinguished from regular newsreels by their longer narratives rooted in the genre traditions of newsreel, documentary, and the Kulturfilm, that reported on a single topic. The Press Office conceived these films in close cooperation with the Deutsche Wochenschau’s staff of editors and cameramen. The newsreel company then produced them according to the Press Office’s exacting specifications, and under that agency’s close supervision. PR films like 1953’s A Man Advocates for his People (Ein Mann wirbt für sein Volk), 1961’s Visiting Bonn: A Report from the Political Life in the Federal Capital (Zu Gast in Bonn: Ein Bericht aus dem politischen Leben der Bundeshauptstadt), or 1961’s The Path into the Future (Der Weg in die Zukunft) offered its audiences entertaining, inclusive, and celebratory images of their new state and its administration that were centered on a narrative of success. They underlined the Federal Republic’s steady 5

The film material was annotated: “Adenauer Privat (unveröffentlicht)” (“Adenauer in private [unreleased]”) by the Deutsche Wochenschau Archive in Hamburg, when I retrieved it there in 2009.

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Staging West German Democracy

progress in foreign policy under Adenauer’s leadership (A Man Advocates for his People), they celebrated the country’s many diplomatic connections and international prestige (Visiting Bonn), and they extolled the benefits of the new friendship with the former arch enemy France (The Path into the Future). By sketching out a new postwar democratic imaginary on film for West Germans, the PR films helped the Adenauer administration navigate the central challenges inherent to the West German process of nation-building. This study contextualizes the PR films into different stages of the still nascent West German nation-building process. By exploring a heretofore overlooked media domain, it delivers unique insights into the sociopolitical consolidation of the Federal Republic on the Cold War frontlines. The focus on the PR films throws processes of adapting and altering propaganda techniques during the Adenauer period, as well as their combining with US-influenced methods of political PR and opinion polling, into relief. It thereby complicates our understanding of the Adenauer administration’s PR policies and of the use of persuasive film-making in the West German postwar democracy. In the process, this study also sheds light on the ways in which the notion of charismatic masculine leadership was reinvented for film after the Third Reich through a complex process that involved breaks and continuities with the past in terms of personnel and style.6 The central topic of investigation, however, are the motivations and the narrative strategies with which these films stage the Federal Republic as a flourishing democracy in the West German postwar present: as a new state firmly aligned with the West, and under Adenauer’s experienced leadership. In pursuing this question within the methodological framework of media history, the book examines the institutional relationship between the films’ buyer, the Federal Press Office, and their producer, the state-controlled newsreel company Deutsche Wochenschau. The study then analyzes thematic groups of PR films with regard to their specific PR discourses. As a methodology, it combines a history of the films’ production contextualized within the Adenauer administration’s specific PR needs and audience expectations, based on archival research, with a subsequent close reading of the films’ narrative and symbolic content. In the course, it examines the correspondence between the Deutsche Wochenschau and its government contractor regarding the planning and production of the films. The correspondence documents the development in style, 6

Due to space and thematic restrictions, this study can only refer to these instances where they serve my argument that the PR films helped the Adenauer administration navigate the central challenges inherent to the West German nation-building process.

Introduction

5

themes, and PR messages that were the public face of West German foreign and domestic policy, as well as its phases and thematic shifts in the ongoing campaign of nation-building. In documenting the process of translating into film the PR needs of a nascent state whose founding and establishing was inherently problematic due to its status as a successor state to the Third Reich and its position on the Cold War frontlines, this approach traces the Adenauer administration’s construction of a postwar, West German democratic imaginary on film. The analyses of the PR films in this study reconstruct the collective anxieties, challenges, and ambitions of the early Federal Republic. By establishing a production history of the PR films, this study follows the ideas the Adenauer administration wanted to convey through the PR films from their creation at a conference table at the Federal Press Office to the filming on location, and to the editing at the Deutsche Wochenschau studios. The close analysis of key scenes from the finished films then analyzes how these ideas were translated into the grammar of film, and to what end. With its emphasis on the origin and construction of the films’ PR messages,7 this approach sheds light on the particular kind of collective postwar identity that the Adenauer administration actively pursued in these films during a period that can be described as the Federal Republic’s founding years. To this date, there has been no comprehensive research on the West German government’s efforts to foster an awareness of the democratic process and to showcase the successes of democracy in the Federal Republic through government-commissioned films. In thus expanding the period of “democracy propaganda” from the Allied re-education efforts during the occupation of 1945–9 to the Federal Republic’s founding period, this book fills an evident research gap by providing new insights and expanded understanding of the Federal Republic’s early media use. The short Adenauer-sequence also introduces central observations relevant for the analyses to follow. First, the Deutsche Wochenschau strove to create filmic imagery of Adenauer as political PR that would align the first chancellor of the Federal Republic with the postwar development of West Germany. Second, Adenauer and his government initiated and actively supported this endeavor throughout his administration. Third, the hyperbolic rendering of Adenauer as “redeemer of the Germans” reflects several central strategies of the PR films’ persuasive patterns. Last, the fact that the Deutsche Wochenschau

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The absence of precise screening data and audience numbers for the PR films makes a study on their reception, based on those numbers, impossible.

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and the Federal Press Office, which controlled the company on several levels, decided not to release these beatifying images indicates that there was a line that both the producer of the PR films and its federal contractor were unwilling to cross: a manipulation of images that would stray into the territory of overt propaganda. The PR films, it will be shown, relied on subtler symbolisms. A regular facet of the Adenauer administration’s wide array of PR communications, the PR films remain virtually unknown today. During the Adenauer years, however, they contributed in considerable ways to the shape of the administration’s public profile, and in that regard, they offer access to an understanding of the early Federal Republic’s self-representation. Distributed predominantly through the media services of the West German Länder (Landesfilmdienste), the PR films made the voice of the Adenauer administration heard in the West German media landscape. They were shown in schools and universities across the Federal Republic. Those with the greatest popular appeal also ran in theaters around the country. The films played an important role during the political campaigns of Adenauer’s CDU party (Christian Democratic Union of Germany, Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands). Mobile film screening vans, together with political speakers to underscore their main political arguments, carried the PR films not only into major population centers but also into the Federal Republic’s remotest areas. They reached German Democratic Republic citizens and refugees in the border cinemas and through screenings in refugee centers in West Berlin. Officials introduced films and elaborated on facets of the government politics involved during screenings in diplomatic settings organized by the West German embassies and consulates abroad. In short, the PR films were the Federal Republic’s filmic calling card. This book argues that under the guise of documentaries on state visits and other events, the films were carefully constructed public relations cinema that responded dynamically to sociopolitical challenges. Professionally executed in terms of the production and adhering to the West German newsreel system’s conventions of narrative and style, these films were effective means to foster public consent in turbulent times. A successful outcome of popular and continued support for the newly formed West Germany and its objectives was by no means certain. As they made the case for measures that the government regarded as assuring the country’s successful future and a continuation of what it saw as successful policies, the films shed light on the PR narrative accompanying the consolidation of Adenauer’s politics within a nation still under development. In this respect, they offer a timely perspective on how a newly formed government used media to facilitate acceptance of at times controversial measures in its founding years. Considering

Introduction

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the current concern about “democracies in crisis”8 and the concomitant rise of politicians with authoritarian tendencies that market themselves as paternalistic savior figures, this study offers important insight into the medial construction of such an image and how it was used to sell politics. This book examines the PR films as medial manifestations of key West German founding discourses. They represent a treasure trove from which basic tenets of the Federal Republic’s efforts at building a collective West German postwar identity can be reconstructed. At the same time, the PR films stand out as a compact and well-preserved body of information that sheds light on a heretofore largely overlooked aspect of the federal government’s media policies. Consequently, they have considerable significance for German Studies, History, and Media Studies as a whole. The PR films display a concerted effort to firmly link a charismatic portrayal of Konrad Adenauer with the Federal Republic’s successful path towards the status of a politically stable, Western democracy among the viewership, to the effect that Adenauer is rendered the sole guarantor of these political successes. This pattern was fully formed with 1953’s A Man Advocates for his People, and sets this group of PR films apart from other PR films made for the Press Office that do not figure prominently in this book, especially the early ones before 1953. Due to Adenauer’s towering presence at the former group of films’ narrative center, these PR films were often dubbed “chancellor films” (Kanzlerfilme) in both internal CDU parlance,9 and at the Deutsche Wochenschau.10 These films share their Adenauer-centrism with the regular Deutsche Wochenschau-produced newsreel, Neue Deutsche Wochenschau. Media historian Uta Schwarz refers to Adenauer as “Wochenschau-Star” in this context,11 and argues: “The representation of the chancellor was based on the deliberate use of cinematic means in order to portray Adenauer and his politics in such a way that they were represented as likable, understandable and as widely acceptable as possible, in order to 8 See for example: Dambisa Moyo, “Across the World, Democracy Is in Crisis. Here’s My Plan to Save It,” The Guardian, May 2, 2018, https://www. theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/02/democracy- crisis-plantrump-brexit-system-politicans-voters; Carl Gershman, “Democracy and Democracies in Crisis,” World Affairs Journal, http://www.worldaffairsjournal. org/article/democracy-and-democracies-crisis (accessed June 8, 2018). 9 Letter by Beyer (CDU Geschäftsstelle) to Beetz [sic!] (FPO), June 10, 1953 (BArchiv B145/824). 10 Internal memo by Noelle for Wiers (DW), October 31, 1963 (Deutsche Wochenschau Archive, in the following listed as “DW Archive”). 11 Uta Schwarz, Wochenschau, Westdeutsche Identität und Geschlecht in den Fünfziger Jahren (Frankfurt/Main; New York: Campus, 2002), 352.

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obtain the highest possible level of political acclaim.”12 Schwarz even characterizes the Deutsche Wochenschau cameramen as Adenauer’s “visual bodyguards,” and underlines that they were constantly trying to cast him in the most favorable light on the screen.13

Precursors of the PR Films: Newsreel, Kulturfilm, and Propaganda In their narrative design around an uncritical portrayal of Adenauer and his policies, the PR films can easily be identified as belonging to the extremely heterogenous group of media statements commonly referred to as “propaganda.” In particular, the PR films exhibit obvious ties to prior forms of persuasive film-making in Germany that are closely connected to the development of the newsreel and Kulturfilm formats. Jürgen Voigt points out that during the Kaiserreich, German film innovator Oskar Messter “made film into the instrument of those who had the power.” Messter became Wilhelm II’s favorite cameraman and was able to accompany the Kaiser on his trips—a true precursor of Adenauer’s relationship to his favorite Deutsche Wochenschau cameraman Wilhelm Luppa.14 During the First World War, Messter became instrumental in the development of a German war propaganda: the Messter Wochenschau became “one of the most popular war newsreels.”15 After the First World War period had seen a concerted development of filmic propaganda to sustain the war effort, the Weimar Republic saw “what is commonly regarded as the ‘golden era’ of newsreels,”16 a period that saw the proliferation of the newsreel medium for civilian use. This momentum was carried by large media corporations, foremost of all media magnate Alfred Hugenberg’s business empire, who introduced the highly popular Deuling-Woche in 1922, and by the Universum Film AG (UFA), which upon acquisition by Hugenberg in

12 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 357. 13 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 356–7. 14 Jürgen Voigt, Die Kino-Wochenschau: Medium eines bewegten Jahrhunderts (Gelsenkirchen: Edition Archaea, 2004), 14–15. 15 Babette Heusterberg, “Oskar Messter – Begründer der Deutschen Kinound Filmindustrie,” Bundesarchiv – Oskar Messter – Begründer der Deutschen Kino- und Filmindustrie, http://www.bundesarchiv.de/DE/Content/VirtuelleAusstellungen/Oskar-Messter-Begrunder-Der-Deutschen-Kino-UndFilmindustrie/oskar-messter-begrunder-der-deutschen-kino-und-filmindustrie. html (accessed June 6, 2018). 16 Eugen Pfister, Europa im Bild: Imaginationen Europas in Wochenschauen in Deutschland, Frankreich, Grossbritannien und Österreich 1948–1959 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 49.

Introduction

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1927 changed the name Deuling-Woche into Ufa-Wochenschau.17 Technical innovations such as the advent of the 16mm format and sound did their part in making newsreels into the most modern medium of its era. Alongside newsreels, the Kulturfilm, another important precursor of the PR films, flourished as well. This genre entertained Weimar-era theater audiences through a short narrative form with documentaries about a wide variety of topics on nature or culture in the widest sense. According to historian Heide Fehrenbach, the Kulturfilm was a genuinely German genre that developed in the 1920s into a commercially highly successful format through “the cultivation of their trademark feuilletonistic style.”18 Media scholar Peter Zimmermann argues in this context that central tenets of Nazi-ideology, such as “conceptions of the struggle for survival, the health of the Volk, Nordic beauty, and a classless community of the Volk, were present in the Weimar Kulturfilm already, and were only sharpened further by the racist and militant ideals of the Nazis.”19 After Hitler’s ascent to power, and with the UFA’s transfer into the hands of the Nazi party in 1933, both newsreel and Kulturfilm became an integral part of the propaganda apparatus overseen by the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda) led by Joseph Goebbels. After taking control over the different newsreels in the Reich, Goebbels’ ministry determined both topics and form of the newsreels, with the Vice-President of the Reich Film Chamber (Reichsfilmkammer), Hans Weidemann explaining about the use of the newsreel medium that the focus lay on “a state-political, ideological [weltanschaulich], and educational propaganda for the people.”20 After the outbreak of the Second World War, from 1940 onward, the Deutsche Wochenschau brought war propaganda filmed by the “propaganda companies” (Propagandakompanien) into film theaters of the Reich and its occupied territories. The newsreel medium had evolved into a blunt “propaganda weapon” with one main topic: the war, and to justify any means that lead to an ostensible “final victory.” The PR films also developed under the influence of Allied reeducational propaganda that sought to discredit Nazism, educate about 17 Voigt, Die Kino-Wochenschau, 21. 18 Heide Fehrenbach, Cinema in Democratizing Germany: Reconstructing National Identity After Hitler (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 215. 19 Peter Zimmermann, “Zwischen Sachlichkeit, Idylle und Propaganda. Der Kulturfilm im Dritten Reich,” in Triumph der Bilder: Kultur- und Dokumentarfilme vor 1945 im internationalen Vergleich, ed. Peter Zimmermann and Kay Hoffmann (Konstanz: UVK Medien, 2003), 7. 20 “[. . .] wir wollen in einer künstlerisch-geformten Wochenschau die Möglichkeit der staatspolitischen, weltanschaulichen und volkserzieherischen Propaganda nutzen.” Weidemann qtd. in: Voigt, Die Kino-Wochenschau, 31.

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Staging West German Democracy

its crimes, and to cultivate democratic sensibilities in Germans after the Second World War. Once again, the newsreel medium emerged as an integral part of these efforts: the newsreel Welt im Film, produced and distributed by the American and British occupation forces, and the French Blick in die Welt brought news and entertainment from an Allied perspective into West German movie theaters. “At the same time, commissioned by the military government, about 100 propaganda, educational, and documentary films are being produced. These films and the newsreel are part of a campaign for the re-education of Germans and focus on the decisive question: ‘How do I become a democrat?’ ”21 The re-education films aimed to illustrate democratic procedures, highlight aspects of a non-militaristic, civilian society, and offered exemplary stories of democratic behavior. In contrast, the PR films developed in the Federal Republic from 1953 onward favored celebrating the successes of democracy instead of explaining its workings in society.

Political PR as Special Case of Propaganda in the West German Context The PR films’ roots in Germany’s history of propagandistic film-making are obvious. Still, this study argues that it makes sense to further problematize the term propaganda in relation to the PR films. While the propaganda-frame makes sense without further qualification in certain scholarly settings, in its media history perspective on the PR films, this book needs to take a more differentiated approach. Instead of critiquing them as totalitarian and manipulative statements with obvious continuities to the Third Reich propaganda machine,22 the framework of public relations, understood as one distinct formation of what is usually subsumed under “propaganda,” highlights the films’ forward-oriented, constructive content of nation-building in a media democracy. As will be elaborated later, the PR frame also reflects several characteristics of the films that set them apart from a narrower definition of propaganda. As will become clear, the following chapters’ arguments about the films depend on such a narrow distinction. 21 Liner notes, Wie werde ich Demokrat?, DVD (Frankfurt am Main: Fa. strandfilmProduktions GmbH, 2006). 22 This does not mean that a study of the PR films as propaganda would not be viable. Such a study would have to rest on different premises, however. It would have to extend the films surveyed to take into account a different pool of more openly propagandistic Cold War films that focus on rearmament and the NATO enemy the Soviet Union. Of primary importance would be a detailed examination of the continuities between the Third Reich Deutsche Wochenschau and its postwar counterpart in terms of production staff, content, and style. While at times references to these continuities will be made when they serve the arguments of this study, these continuities cannot be the main concern of this book.

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While the Third Reich and its modes of mass-manipulation were discredited in the Federal Republic’s public sphere, a mentality prevailed within the Adenauer administration that the voice of the government had to be heard among the new media system that had been installed under Allied tutelage, and which Adenauer viewed with suspicion. With the impact of both Third Reich and Allied propaganda in mind, the Adenauer administration decided that a government film and broadcasting outlet was necessary to alert West Germans to the objectives and practical exigencies of democracy. This was a basic tenet of Adenauer’s media policies.23 Adenauer saw the emerging West German broadcasting system as a “political leadership tool” of the federal government.24 According to Rudolf Steininger, Adenauer’s efforts to create a centralized German broadcasting system through federal law lasted from 1949 to 1953. They ultimately failed due to resistance of the Allies and the German Federal States, which saw a centralized broadcasting system to be in violation of the Basic Law.25 In order to stay in control of the political process as much as democratic procedures would allow, Adenauer placed “special emphasis on the newsreels” in his effort to make the government’s voice heard in the democratic media process.26 In Uta Schwarz’s assessment, the Deutsche Wochenschau was the “the federation’s audio-visual advertising board.”27 Newsreel historian Joachim Paschen concurs that the Deutsche Wochenschau was a “government media outlet.”28 However, the Deutsche Wochenschau’s designed role in the West German media landscape, as well as its administrative structure, both of which are elaborated upon in chapter two, made it unsuited for the distribution of openly propagandistic statements. Reporting remained rooted in political fact and refrained from overt distortion of reality. In this sense, the PR films provide a governmental perspective on political

23 Ute Daniel, “Die Politik der Propaganda: Zur Praxis gouvernementaler Selbstrepräsentation vom Kaiserreich bis zur Bundesrepublik,” in Propaganda. Meinungskampf, Verführung und politische Sinnstiftung 1789–1989, ed. Ute Daniel and Wolfgang Siemann (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1994), 72–3. 24 Rolf Steininger, “Rundfunkpolitik Im ersten Kabinett Adenauer,” Vierteljahrshefte Für Zeitgeschichte 21, no. 4 (October 1973): 391. 25 Steiniger, “Rundfunkpolitik im ersten Kabinett Adenauer,” 388–434. 26 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 83. 27 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 19. 28 Newsreel historian Joachim Paschen uses the expression “publizistisches Regierungsorgan.” Joachim Paschen, “Die Unabhängigste Wochenschau der Welt? Aus den 1950er-Anfangsjahren eines publizistischen Regierungsorgans,” Haus des Dokumentarfilms, http://dokumentarfilmforschung.de/dff/cms/ ?p=528 (accessed November 11, 2012).

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Staging West German Democracy

issues and implicitly urge for Adenauer’s re-election as chancellor. In more general terms, the PR films establish an authoritative master narrative that celebrates the Federal Republic and Adenauer through a selective presentation of political reality without bashing the political opposition. In contrast to both fascist and anti-communist propaganda films, the Adenauer PR films did not engage in any kind of negative campaigning to harm a clearly-defined opponent.29 Disqualifying or denouncing the political opposition in the Federal Republic in the PR films did not occur in part due to the Deutsche Wochenschau’s democratic administrative structure: the company’s administrative boards were staffed with members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) opposition alongside CDU adherents. Uta Schwarz argues that the SPD had supported the Deutsche Wochenschau’s funding with the implicit, initial understanding it could be used to promote its political aims as well.30 The Adenauer administration’s practice of intervening in the media landscape through the Federal Press Office and Deutsche Wochenschau came with profoundly different implications and objectives when compared to Third Reich or Soviet uses of film as a propaganda machine. This perspective is supported by recent scholarship. Media historian Lars Rosumek, author of a 2007 study on the federal chancellors’ media policies, analyzes these in the framework of “political public relations,”31 and rejects the notion of propaganda as a viable category. Rosumek’s adoption of the PR framework partly rests upon historians Wolfgang Schieder’s and Christoph Dipper’s argument that in the German context, the notion of propaganda was “discredited” and “practically inapplicable for political parties in post-National Socialist Germany.”32 Schwarz concurs by highlighting that the term’s “practical value” was “very limited”, due to “its wide spread emphasis on totalitarian regimes and a comprehensive falsifying control of the public.”33

29 The sole exception is the occasional instance of anti-communist rhetoric when commenting about the Soviet Union. The regime of the German Democratic Republic does not play a significant role in the PR films. 30 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 82. However, the SPD never was able to use the newsreel company to the same effect, partly due to its opposition status and the shifting power constellations within the Deutsche Wochenschau administration, partly due to the fact that the Deutsche Wochenschau cameramen favored Adenauer over the other political leaders and created the more compelling images of him. Schwarz, Wochenschau, 356–7. 31 Lars Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien: Acht Porträts von Adenauer bis Merkel (Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 2007), 32. 32 Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien, 38. 33 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 16–17.

Introduction

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Apart from the problems with the term arising out of the specific German postwar situation, considering the wide variety of contexts, cultural histories, and definitions of propaganda, the notion lacks clarity as a category of analysis for this study. Propaganda, understood here as “the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist,”34 is a very broadly defined term that could be applied to a wide number of situations, political systems, and societies. In the German context, this would throw together rabidly antiSemitic Third Reich propaganda with modern-day election commercials by Angela Merkel’s CDU party that advertise plurality and tolerance regarding the recent “refugee crisis” of 2015. More importantly, according to Lars Rosumek, one of propaganda’s constitutive elements is that “the validity of information” transmitted by propaganda “was secondary, or often even undesirable,” while the PR films in their reporting on political events are rooted in verifiable fact. Conversely, Rosumek argues, “lying is clearly part of the business” in propaganda. “The communicative content of governmental propaganda,” Rosumek continues, “is usually augmented with forced measures. According to this definition, propaganda can only take hold completely in nondemocratic societies with limited freedom of the press.”35 Media histories on the organizational structure of the Press Office,36 as well as Schwarz’s study on identity and gender in the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel,37 equally reject the propaganda framework for the Adenauer administration’s media apparatus.38 In its media history approach to the PR films, this study follows Rosumek’s historical perspective on the West German chancellor’s media policies and adopts the framework of political PR. Rosumek sees 34 Garth S. Jowett and O’Donnell, Victoria, Propaganda and Persuasion, 4th edition (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc, 2004), 7. 35 Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien, 38. 36 Horst Walker speaks of “advertising of the federal government through film and images.” Horst O. Walker, Das Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung (Frankfurt am Main: Haag + Herchen Verlag, 1982), 39. 37 Schwarz uses the expression “the federation’s audio-visual advertising board.” Schwarz, Wochenschau, 19. 38 Hans-Jürgen Schröder uses the framework of propaganda for his analysis of two PR films on Adenauer’s US state visits. However, Schröder’s article in its focus on the films’ use during the 1953 and 1957 elections reduces the PR films’ messages to election campaigning. In contrast, this study breaks new ground by integrating these films into a project of nation-building that opens the films’ analysis to wider implications. Hans-Jürgen Schröder, “Wahlkampfbilder: Die Visualisierung von Adenauers Amerikareisen 1953 und 1957 in Propagandafilmen der CDU,” in Wahlkämpfe in Deutschland: Fallstudien Zur Wahlkampfkommunikation 1912–2005, ed. Nikolaus Jakob (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2007), 137–50.

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Staging West German Democracy

PR “and the associated activities as an essential part of communication in modern mass societies.” He defines PR based on James E. Gruning’s and Todd Hunt’s definition as “part of the management, of communication between an organization and its publics,” which in his view lends “PR a social and democracy-supporting function within a society.”39 This latter aspect is particularly important when it comes to the analyses of the PR films’ function of promoting democracy. Rosumek even argues that political PR “since 1949 traditionally belonged to the political makeup of the German social system.”40 As a body of work that highlights a positively connoted, partisan version of political events, the PR films’ statements are multifaceted and symbolically complex. They were organized around contradictions, such as between Adenauer’s policy of Western integration and the desire to reunite with East Germany. The PR films persuaded without recourse to overt deception. They invited Germans of all political colors and social statuses to identify with their new country in a rapidly changing world that brought about new sociocultural alliances with (predominantly) the US and France. In this regard, the PR films emphasized a rethinking about what it meant to be German post 1945 on broader, and more complex terms than propaganda.

Reading the PR Films as a Sociopolitical Archeology of the Adenauer Years Due to their richness in sociopolitical commentary, this study conceives of the newsreel medium, and of the PR films in particular, as a crucial cultural domain that reconstructs an Alltagsgeschichte (everyday history) of the Federal Republic during the Adenauer period. This perspective only comes into focus when one considers the PR films in their entirety as a deliberately crafted narrative to address clearly formulated strategic aims. Today, key images and clips from newsreels and the PR films of that period are still widely known to a contemporary German TV audience, but not in the way in which they were originally intended. Excerpts tend to appear in historical documentaries as de-contextualized clips and snippets, visually complementing an authoritative master narrative of the historical waypoints of the Federal Republic. This approach ignores the PR films’ function at the time of their distribution, to explicate the Adenauer administration’s policies and to comment upon ongoing sociopolitical developments. The main reason for the inclusion of these excerpts in TV history formats like ZDF History is to provide visual context for a historical narrative geared towards a non-specialist audience, and, in the process 39 Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien, 34. 40 Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien, 34.

Introduction

15

of this, to lend the TV format an air of historic authenticity. As media historian Esther-Beate Körber argues, “[. . .] newsreels are often used as simple illustrations of history, as if they could, [. . .] ‘show what it actually had been like.’ ”41 The original films’ intent is largely ignored, however, and very rarely commented upon: among other things, this practice obscures the fact that many of these film clips used to underline historical authenticity and veracity originally stem from propaganda films with very different intentions. Consequently, one aim of this book is to re-contextualize such clips in today’s documentaries on the Adenauer era by situating them as extracts from deliberate filmic statements of political PR. The importance of newsreels as a historical source is increasingly acknowledged by the scholarship, but at the same time, there is consent that they cannot be used as uncritically as practiced in the aforementioned TV history formats. In the context of media history, Körber has identified three mutually exclusive ways of conceptualizing the medium’s value for historical scholarship. The first takes newsreels at “face value.” This approach views newsreels as “vestiges, a collection of information,” which are “interpreted as a communication of facts.”42 A second school views “newsreels decidedly as a source of tradition. [. . .] Their source value [. . .] rested exactly on the deliberate combination of image and word. It had to be interpreted not as an effigy, but rather as a crafted framing of reality; not the related facts, but the arranger’s intent to make the film interesting as a source.”43 Lastly, Körber elaborates that Heinz Wiers, a former managing director of the Deutsche Wochenschau, argued that newsreels had neither a purpose to inform nor to influence public opinion. Wiers polemically conceived of newsreels as a “dramaturgical element” that facilitated the audience’s “transition from their everyday reality to the feature film” in the cinemas, along the simple formula “Objectivity, research? Entertainment!”44 “If one followed Wiers’s opinion,” Körber argues, “newsreels were to be understood and interpreted neither as the relation of facts nor the relation of opinions, but on aesthetic terms as a filmic work of art.”45 Media historian Sigrun Lehnert agrees with Körber that there exist “different opinions” whether newsreels were made “first and foremost as an instrument of information, or for the entertainment of the audience.”46 As Lehnert has shown in her 41 Esther-Beate Körber, “Wie interpretiert man eine Wochenschau?,” GWU, no. 45/1994 (1994): 157. 42 Körber, “Wie interpretiert man eine Wochenschau?,” 137. 43 Körber, “Wie interpretiert man eine Wochenschau?,” 137. 44 Körber, “Wie interpretiert man eine Wochenschau?,” 137–8. 45 Körber, “Wie interpretiert man eine Wochenschau?,” 138. 46 Sigrun Lehnert, Wochenschau und Tagesschau in den 1950er Jahren (Konstanz: Uvk Verlags GmbH, 2013), 13.

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Staging West German Democracy

study comparing the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel with the ARD network’s news format “Tagesschau,” from the newsreel’s beginnings, its producers struggled with its thematic orientation, which oscillated between light entertainment, news, and a transition to the main film.47 In any case, Wiers’ polemic as one of the PR films’ producers casts a telling light on the Deutsche Wochenschau’s self-perception and represents a perspective on the company’s output that is highly relevant for this study. For both the producers and the newsreel audience, Wiers describes the expectations as entertainment with mass appeal. Wiers’ contention of “entertainment” over “objectivity, research” supports my analysis of the PR films as well. Entirely in line with Wiers’ assessment on newsreels generally, the PR films present politics as entertainment. They never show politics as a long and painstaking negotiation process and as a search for compromise, but always as an outcome, a neatlypackaged result that is presented after the fact. The political outcomes presented always comply with Adenauer’s previously stated wishes and expectations. In indirect confirmation, Wiers acknowledges that the Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel was not objective in its reporting, a statement widely supported by other findings in the scholarship.48

PR Films as “Deliberate Combination of Image and Word” This study argues that beyond the PR films’ “entertainment value,” to use Wiers’ characterization of newsreels, their narratives are all organized along a particular PR message.49 For this reason, the following analyses combine an awareness of Wiers’ insistence on newsreels’ predominant entertainment value with the second school of newsreel interpretation identified by Körber, which views them as interpretations of history. In short, this study will look at the films’ “deliberate combination of image and word” in Körber’s words:50 not as a presented reality, but rather as a filmic discourse reflecting a particular concept of reality. Consequently, the films are not assessed for the truth-value of facts presented in them. Such presumptions would contradict a basic

47 Lehnert, Wochenschau und Tagesschau, 424–8. 48 Most importantly, see Schwarz, Wochenschau, and Karl-Friedrich Reimers, “ ‘Begegnung Im Kreml’ – Adenauer in Moskau 1955. Diskussion eines bundesamtlichen ‘Reportage-Film’ – Dokumentes,” in Zweimal Deutschland seit 1945 im Film und Fernsehen I: Von der Kino-Wochenschau zum aktuellen Fernsehen ed. Karl Friedrich Reimers, Monika Lerch-Stumpf, and Rüdiger Steinmerz (Munich: Verlag Ölschläger, 1983). 49 In most cases, these rest on several other ancillary PR messages that run throughout all the PR films, most importantly Adenauer as guarantor of political stability and economic prosperity. 50 Körber, “Wie interpretiert man eine Wochenschau?,” 137.

Introduction

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assumption of this study, namely that film always represents a manipulation of reality. This premise has been recognized from the early beginnings of documentary film, summarized by the pioneer John Grierson’s dictum that documentary film represented “the creative treatment of actuality.”51 Accordingly, camera angles, cutting, commentary, atmosphere, stylistic traditions and continuities, and the correspondence about the production of these films will all be incorporated into the analysis. Körber evaluates newsreels as historical sources as follows: The older they get vis-à-vis the present day, the more newsreels will, increasingly, become a source of information about culture and everyday life of the period depicted. Already today newsreels show to an interpreting historian that and how life and the outlook on life change in the course of one generation – if one makes a concerted effort to look at more than the main subject.52 If one is indeed “looking at more than the main subject,” the Adenauer government’s PR films lay bare an intricately developed, persuasive master narrative for their audience. The decoding of this filmic syntax will be a primary concern of the analyses presented in the following chapters. A second, related focus will be on how the PR films re-contextualize material already familiar to the audience from previous reporting in newsreels, newspapers, and radio newscasts. Characteristically, and similar to newsreels, the PR films expand on political events often weeks after the fact by offering more detail and the general atmosphere of the event. Körber describes a central pattern of audience identification with newsreels as a process of “re-experiencing”: She emphasizes that newsreels “[. . .] did not thrive on actuality, but on re-actualization through the fascination of moving images.”53 That same process of reexperiencing occurs in the Deutsche Wochenschau PR films, which, considering their longer use compared to newsreels, were often further removed from the actual event. For example, in the case of films covering Adenauer’s visits to the US, the audience had read about this event in the daily reporting of the newspapers, and heard about it on the radio, while it was still unfolding. The newsreel may have presented moving images about this event

51 Qtd. in Dirk Eitzen, “When Is a Documentary? Documentary as a Mode of Reception,” Cinema Journal 35, no.1 (Autumn, 1995): 82. 52 Körber, “Wie interpretiert man eine Wochenschau?,” 150. 53 Körber, “Wie interpretiert man eine Wochenschau?,” 138.

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Staging West German Democracy

roughly one week after it actually happened, as newsreels were only produced with new material once every week. The PR film on the event usually took anywhere between one to six months to complete before being shown in the theaters or other screening venues. With the time lag between the actual news and their filmic rendering in the PR films, audiences were subjected to a filmic narrative which invited them to re-experience previously known events in a particularly “guided” and highly organized fashion—through a narrative syntax that combined commentary and editing techniques, shot selection, music, and the like. This resulted in a narrowly defined, carefully engineered, interpretative context. As many of the key items of Adenauer’s political agenda, such as the question of West German NATO membership, were initially unpopular, the PR films’ carefully developed audiovisual rhetoric was key to achieving the desired persuasive effect.

PR Films as Products of the West German Newsreel Industry: Definitions and Distinctions In its search for a media channel that allowed it to explain and comment upon the project of nation-building,54 the Adenauer administration saw in the West German state-controlled newsreel system the perfect partner. While from 1949 on, the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel brought weekly celebratory coverage on the administration into West German movie theaters, by 1951 the Adenauer administration encouraged using the Deutsche Wochenschau for the production of PR films promoting specific political objectives.55 The PR films’ longer narratives focused on a single topic which made them perfect vehicles for symbolically complex narratives that advertised key aspects of Adenauer’s political agenda to the West German electorate. Apart from the fact that they frequently featured film material from the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau and share with it the basic conventions regarding style and mode of production, the PR films are different from newsreels. According to Joachim Paschen, an edition of the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel was about 10 to 12 minutes long and consisted of about eight independent segments. The newsreels were to “entertain” the audience “by a colorful mix of politics, sensational events, and up to date sports news.”56 According to media historian

54 The Adenauer administration’s PR needs will be expanded upon in chapter two. 55 Memorandum by Krämer (Finance Ministry), January 30, 1951 (BArchiv B106/958). 56 Joachim Paschen, “Vor der ‘Tagesschau’ gab es die ‘Wochenschau:’ Hamburg als Produktionsort eines untergegangenen Mediums 1950–1977,” Hamburger Flimmern: Die Zeitschrift des Film- und Fernsehmuseums Hamburg e.V., no. 17 (November 2010): 25.

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Eugen Pfister, newsreels were “highly formalized” cinematic constructs both regarding form and their role in the cinematic experience: “They were determined by their very limited running time, their hierarchical subordination under the main film in the cinema experience, and by internationally established conventions, which also served their transnational exchange.”57 The PR films, on the other hand, need to be understood as coherent and self-enclosed entities often screened on their own, and in the aforementioned, mostly non-commercial settings serviced by the Landesfilmdienste. In contrast to regular newsreels, the PR films’ task was to focus the viewer’s attention on a singular narrative devoted to a political topic. The PR films usually were longer than newsreels, with a length of 25 to 45 minutes. While the newsreels were in black and white, several PR films, especially the ones reporting on highly popular topics such as President Kennedy’s 1963 visit to West Germany and West Berlin, were shot in color to maximize their commercial appeal.58 Apart from these differences, an important characteristic that the PR films share with the newsreels is their entertainment factor. In presenting political topics, neither format delved too deeply into political complexities. Both the films and the newsreels favored the visual spectacle and public appeal of diplomatic and political events over in-depth reporting. Since the Deutsche Wochenschau was a PR instrument of the state, a critical discussion of government politics, as for example pioneered in 1947 by Rudolf Augstein’s political magazine Der Spiegel, or since 1961 by the first political television magazine Panorama on the ARD television network, remains completely absent from the company’s output. In their celebratory focus and extended narratives, and in melding basic stylistic tenets of the genres of newsreel and documentary (especially the German tradition of the Kulturfilm) in the process, the PR films are indicative of a structural change that the West German newsreel industry underwent throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The Adenauer years saw the slow transformation of the Deutsche Wochenschau’s production output from a sole production of newsreels towards contracted films for the government and private companies and corporations. This reorientation was largely due to declining movie theater audiences and the government company’s need to secure sustainable financing for the future. As home entertainment through television continued to chip away at the newsreel’s audience and

57 Eugen Pfister, Europa im Bild, 76. 58 See: The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy (Deutschland grüßt Kennedy), Deutsche Wochenschau 1963.

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Staging West German Democracy

revenues, “[. . .] over time, the Deutsche Wochenschau GmbH expanded the contractual and in-house production of documentary films, to the extent that by the beginning of the 1970s newsreel production made up only about 20% of its overall capacity with about 80% devoted to film and TV productions.”59 Former Deutsche Wochenschau Editor in Chief Manfred Purzer argues on similar terms that during the late Adenauer period, due to the rise of television newscasts like the ARD network’s tagesschau format, the Deutsche Wochenschau was forced to specialize in the journalistic “featuring” of stories that it often identified being behind-the-scenes of news events.60 Throughout the Adenauer period, the company increasingly divided its equipment and experienced staff of newsreel producers, film editors, speakers, and cameramen between government- and other contracted work on the one hand, and newsreel production on the other. A figure for the Deutsche Wochenschau’s overall non-newsreel output of films is hard to establish on the basis of archival information, but a conservative estimate puts the number at least at forty,61 not counting the different versions that were made of a particular film in various lengths and languages. This figure also includes PR films the company produced for West German corporations such as Lufthansa or Shell Oil West Germany. The PR film production for the government reached its apex in April of 1961, when the Deutsche Wochenschau worked on eight such films at the same time.62

The Deutsche Wochenschau as the Preferred Producer of Government PR Despite the dominance of the Deutsche Wochenschau as the PR films’ official producer in terms of production numbers, there were several other companies involved in governmental PR work as well. The Press Office occasionally contracted privately owned companies for specific productions, such as the Munich-based Insel-Film AG, or the IFAG Filmproduktion in Wiesbaden, and, on a somewhat more regular basis,

59 Jutta Gröschl, Die Deutschlandpolitik der vier Grossmächte in der Berichterstattung der deutschen Wochenschauen 1945–1949: ein Beitrag zur Diskussion um den Film als historische Quelle (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1997), 79. 60 Author’s interview with Manfred Purzer, Munich, June 27, 2015. 61 This estimate is based on a list of special feature productions from the Deutsche Wochenschau Archive in Hamburg, accessed in 2013. This list alone is still inaccurate, however, since some Deutsche Wochenschau productions were billed as Deutsche Reportagefilm productions or under other names, and therefore not all of these films are on the Deutsche Wochenschau list. “Bestandsliste Filmarchiv” (DW) n.d. (DW Archive). 62 “Produktionsübersicht,” (DW) April 16, 1961 (DW Archive).

Introduction

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the Hamburg-based Schnabel Filmproduktion.63 These films are notably different from the PR films with regard to the overall mode of production and style, and will not be considered here. In spite of this competition from the private sector, the Press Office’s preference for the Deutsche Wochenschau in the production of the PR films is striking. It can be explained by two main factors. First, since the Deutsche Wochenschau was a government-controlled film company, the Press Office could count on a high degree of confidentiality and compliance throughout the production process: with director Heinz Wiers, the company leadership was devoted to serving the interests of the government.64 Second, there was an acute awareness in the agency and other government circles that the Deutsche Wochenschau due to the regular work on the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel had “special experience and capabilities” when it came to PR film production.65 On several occasions, in internal correspondence, the Press Office highlights the Deutsche Wochenschau’s great archive of footage on state visits and other events,66 and explores the possibility of incorporating such footage into current PR film productions. Manpower and technical infrastructure were other advantages that made the Deutsche Wochenschau particularly attractive for the federal government. Compared to its competition, the Deutsche Wochenschau possessed unmatched reach and clout in production matters. For example, the company was able to send eight cameramen to cover the 1958 soccer World Cup in Sweden and still maintain normal operations for newsreel production in Hamburg.67 In 1963, during the apex of its production capacity, the Deutsche Wochenschau had over twenty cameramen on its roster.68 For this reason, most competitor companies were only able to produce isolated projects for the federation that did not require the production capacities or the archive that only the Deutsche Wochenschau could provide.69

63 Schnabel was such a small company, however, that it had to contract nearly all of its production facilities, materials, and production staff from the Deutsche Wochenschau. Interview with Manfred Purzer, Munich, June 27, 2015. 64 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 97. 65 “Eine freihändige Vergabe des Auftrages ist möglich, da die Deutsche Wochenschau GmbH bei der Erstellung von Dokumentarfilmen über Staatsbesuche besondere Erfahrung und Kunstfertigkeit besitzt, [Para] 3, Ziffer 3 e VOL.” “Genehmigungsverfügung,” (FPO) May 28, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4670). 66 For example: “Genehmigungsverfügung,” (FPO), May 28, 1963. (BArchiv B145/4670). 67 Interview with Manfred Purzer, Munich, June 27, 2015. 68 List of cameramen, (DW) n.d., (BArchiv B145/4670). 69 Interview with Manfred Purzer, Munich, June 27, 2015.

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Staging West German Democracy

Lastly, the fact that the Deutsche Wochenschau was controlled by the Press Office argued for the company’s frequent assignments as government contractor. The company’s close alignment with the federation and its position at the center of a network of PR companies controlled by the Federal Chancellery (Bundeskanzleramt), facilitated collaboration on specific projects across the different PR companies, authorities, and ministries. Close collaboration on the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel allowed the Press Office to rely on an established production path with easy access to the responsible parties for every aspect of the production. The Press Office held varying degrees of company stock, but always enough to exert control, and it held a robust presence on the company’s advisory and supervisory boards.70 The close institutional connection between the Deutsche Wochenschau and the Press Office provided a reliable channel of communication, a proven way of organizing the financing through government funds, and an understanding of the hierarchies involved. All of this represented a crucial advantage that left Deutsche Wochenschau the dominant player in the field.

The Origins of this Study The Deutsche Wochenschau’s close alignment with the Federal Press Office and the profound influence of this situation on its output in both newsreels and PR films first came to my attention in 2009. I was researching the Adenauer government’s media policies for my dissertation on founding discourses for the provisional capital Bonn. During the research in archives across Germany, it became evident that newsreels played a considerable role in facilitating the founding process of the Federal Republic. My search for the Bonn-related films involved examining stacks of VHS video tapes with editions of the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel for segments relating to Bonn at the Deutsche Wochenschau Archive in Hamburg. There, I came upon a list of “K-Filme,” the “chancellor films,” which feature Konrad Adenauer at the heart of their narratives. Upon retrieving the respective tapes, the historical value of the film’s longer narratives and their widespread dissemination was striking. I quickly established that they were as celebratory and uncritical as the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau when reporting on Adenauer and the government, but due to their greater length and documentary approach, these films allowed for a much more detailed development of a narrative about Adenauer that illustrated his leadership in terms of a succession of unqualified political successes. After realizing that the PR films provided seminal insight into the Adenauer government’s attempt to steer the Federal Republic’s nationbuilding process, I decided that, after completion of my PhD work, my 70 See chapter two for details.

Introduction

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next project, this volume, would be to analyze the PR films as a case study in media designed to propagate political objectives.

The Archival Situation I began work on this project in 2012 by seeking to shed light on the PR films’ production process and pair these insights with a close analysis of their content. The Deutsche Wochenschau’s output of PR films, along with the regular newsreels produced, was maintained and preserved by the Deutsche Wochenschau Archive in Hamburg until 2014. This is where one part of the principal archival research on the PR films and their production circumstances was carried out during several summer visits between 2009 and 2013. These files, preserved only in precarious and largely unordered condition in several folders without systematic numbering, revealed the Deutsche Wochenschau’s role as government contractor in producing the PR films under the close supervision of the Federal Press Office. In 2014, when I had completed my research there, the film archive was claimed by the German state and transferred to the German Federal Archive. This forced the Deutsche Wochenschau Archive to close. In order to access the files of the Federal Press Office, the Federal Chancellery, and other ministries, I went to the German Federal Archive (Bundesarchiv) in Koblenz, where the second part of the archival work took place during the summer of 2014. Additional research was also done in the archive of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Sankt Augustin in 2014. These files provided me with documents about the federal government’s PR concepts, as well as its role in crafting the ideas, narratives, and overall PR messages for the films. Combined with the Deutsche Wochenschau Archive files, they revealed the government contractor’s role in the film-production process, and how that production was negotiated between the Adenauer government, their target audiences and their contractor-producer. After surveying the most relevant PR films produced and categorizing them according to their topic focus and related discourses about the Federal Republic, I realized that the PR films represented a unique corpus of filmic nationbuilding throughout the Adenauer era. The work on this study was significantly complicated by the fact that neither the body of PR films, nor the correspondence preserved in the archives are complete: many versions of the films, such as foreign language versions, or short and long edits, and even entire films, were either unavailable, or only accessible after a costly digital transfer process.71 Also, the archival records I consulted at both the German 71 After the PR films were transferred to the German Federal Archive in 2014, the amount of available films online has increased significantly.

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Staging West German Democracy

Federal Archive and the Deutsche Wochenschau Archive regarding the PR films are patchy, with entire years of the Deutsche Wochenschau’s PR film output for the Press Office remaining undocumented. Among the documented films, there is also considerable variation as to what is preserved. Some films, like The Path into the Future on French President Charles de Gaulle’s 1962 visit to the Federal Republic, are extensively documented through production correspondence and film commentary scripts in various stages of development. In contrast, the documentation on other films often only comprises a few letters or exchanges by telex, or it is missing completely. Accounts about the films’ production circumstances vary as a result. Since a cross-referencing between a close reading of the film’s content and the documents relating to their production lay at the foundation of the research method, the availability of documentation also influenced the selection of films for this study. As a result, the archival situation equally shaped the representative cross section of crucial founding discourses that this study represents.

The Selection of Archival Material Since the focus of this study is on the Adenauer administration’s political self-representation through films with Adenauer at the heart of their narratives, PR films that were made before 1953 play a lesser role in this study. These early films were made at a time during which the cinematic vocabulary of the “chancellor films” was not yet fully articulated.72 Secondly, these early films usually promoted very specific political steps or goals, such as treaties or rearmament. In their unique and singular status regarding content and style, they do not allow for a tracing of the development of a particular filmic discourse of nation-building. These films’ production circumstances are often undocumented; some of them were not Deutsche Wochenschau productions. In spite of these disqualifications, this group of films will still be briefly considered, for example in their roles as precursors to the more wide-ranging filmic discourses examined later. Above everything else, the choice of material was made in the interest of identifying a number of films with central and coherent discourses that lay at the heart of the Federal Republic’s path towards independent nationhood. The PR films on the transatlantic relationship with the US, on Adenauer’s 1955 visit to Moscow, on the rapprochement with France during the early 1960s, on the new capital Bonn, and on Adenauer’s person and political legacy all highlight key events in the Federal Republic’s nation-building process. Those discourses begin 72 For the same reason, the study omits films reporting on the travel of government officials other than Adenauer: Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano, Federal President Heinrich Lübke, or the leader of the SPD opposition, Erich Ollenhauer.

Introduction

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with an occupied country without political sovereignty and trace the steps towards becoming a highly respected, democratic state that was an integral part of the cultural, economic, and military West. The choice of films and the identified discourses lie at the heart of the book’s structure.73 Finally, a conscious decision was also taken to exclude films from the analysis that the Press Office occasionally produced through other companies than the Deutsche Wochenschau, and which in contrast to the Deutsche Wochenschau were all private film companies. These films represent dramatically different production circumstances that transcended the state-controlled production model represented by the Deutsche Wochenschau. In addition, a comparable body of the Press Office’s correspondence with the private companies occasionally enlisted in the PR film production is still missing. For these reasons, I will refer to films made outside of the Deutsche Wochenschau production only as regards their subsidiary role in the PR process.

The State of the Research If one looks at the scholarship on postwar newsreel, propaganda, and political PR film in West Germany, it is striking that while a considerable amount focuses on the re-education period between 1945 and 1949, films made after the founding of the Federal Republic are largely ignored. Allied re-education efforts had stopped by the time the Federal Republic was founded on May 23, 1949. However, as the examination of the PR films reveals, the efforts at reorienting Germans towards democracy did not stop after the founding of the new West German state. Quite the contrary, historical accounts of the Adenauer years concur that adoption of democratic principles by West German citizens faced an uphill road.74 Heide Fehrenbach’s trailblazing 1995 study Cinema in Democratizing Germany does not deal with the newsreels and PR films for the period of the Federal Republic, but does contain a chapter on re-education 73 While the respective discourses take center stage in the chapters named after them, these messages are, to different degrees, present in all of the PR films. While the PR films have dominant themes, these were never exclusionary and consequently their multiple discourses can be found echoed in the films at all times regardless of their dominant topic. 74 See for example: Michael Wildt, “Changes in Consumption as Social Practice in West Germany During the 1950s,” in Getting and Spending: European and American Consumer Societies in the 20th Century, ed. Susan Strasser, Charles McGovern, and Matthias Judt (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1998), 316; Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (New York: Penguin Books, 2006), 58; Konrad Jarausch, After Hitler: Recivilizing Germans, 1945–1995 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 9.

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films by the Allies. Studies on print media, particularly the PR work of Adenauer’s Federal Press Office and the role newspapers, journalists, and different private institutions played, abound.75 More recent scholarship has begun to examine the CDU’s activities in political PR through the party’s network of clandestine PR companies.76 However, the story of the major role that the PR films commissioned by the Federal Press Office played in this process remains largely untold. The West German newsreel industry in general is still an underresearched field. Most research has focused on the period of the Third Reich in the context of reception studies and in the frameworks of analyses of propagandistic principles. As film historian Kay Hoffmann pointed out in 2011, “big research gaps” still exist for the time after 1945.77 This situation did not change dramatically after 2011. Most of the research on the West German newsreel industry after 1945 ignores the PR films, while the Deutsche Wochenschau and the newsreel it produced, the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau, have received the greatest part of scholarly attention. A groundbreaking study by Uta Schwarz from 2002 examined the Deutsche Wochenschau’s newsreel output during the 1950s under the headings of identity and gender. A 2004 study by Jürgen Voigt gives an overview on the historical development of the newsreel medium in Germany with a special focus on development during the West German postwar period. Sigrun Lehnert’s important 2013 study, a comparison between the TV-based news format tagesschau and the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel, contributed in many ways to a better understanding of the newsreel’s production circumstances and its constitutive differences to TV news casting.78 Most recently, in 2014, Eugen Pfister published an essential, transnational study on the European imaginary in newsreels in Austria, Germany, France, and Great Britain

75 To name just a few: Christina von Hodenberg, Konsens und Krise: Eine Geschichte der westdeutschen Medienöffentlichkeit 1945–1973 (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2006); Walker, Das Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung; Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien; Johannes Hoffmann, Adenauer, “Vorsicht und keine Indiskretionen!” Zur Informationspolitik und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit der Bundesregierung 1949–1955 (Herzogenrath: Shaker, 1995). 76 See for example: Mark Spicka, Selling the Economic Miracle: Economic Reconstruction and Politics in West Germany, 1949–1957 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007). 77 Kay Hoffmann, “Zwischen Kontinuität und Neuanfang: Ein Resumee der Wochenschautagung ‘Zwischen Aktualität und Unterhaltung,’” Haus des Doikumentarfilms, http://dokumentarfilmforschung.de/dff/cms/?p=540#more540 (accessed August 26, 2013). 78 See Schwarz, Wochenschau; Voigt, Die Kino-Wochenschau; and Lehnert, Wochenschau und Tagesschau.

Introduction

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during the 1950s.79 This book is in many ways indebted to these insightful studies on newsreels. The PR films, on the other hand, have so far received relatively scant attention. The only research conducted on these films took place in two isolated, chapter-length analyses of individual films.80 Tellingly, these are twenty-four years apart.

The Structure of this Study After a review of West Germany’s road to nationhood to outline the Federal Republic’s inherent challenges during its founding period, chapter one explains the federal government’s PR needs for films that could serve as arbitrators and facilitators of Adenauer’s domestic and foreign policies. The chapter then develops this study’s central argument: in order to win elections and to encourage approval for Adenauer and his politics, the PR films need to be understood as staging a working and flourishing democracy under the tutelage of the highly experienced statesman Adenauer along the lines of the CDU’s famous 1957 campaigning slogan “no experiments” (Keine Experimente). In this aspect, to borrow Doris Sommer’s notion from her research on nationbuilding in nineteenth-century Latin American literature, the films represent “foundational fictions” for the Federal Republic.81 After some general remarks on the use of the Deutsche Wochenschau as an instrument of nation-building, the discussion sheds light on how the PR films allowed the Adenauer government to position itself politically as manager of conflicting desires, straddling contradictions that lay at the heart of the early Federal Republic’s identity. The films were charged, first, with demarcating a clear break with the Nazi state while integrating a population of compliant, and presumably now disillusioned former Nazis into the democratic process. Their second objective was to bridge the contradiction that informs virtually every aspect of every PR film, the conundrum of the Adenauer government. On the one hand, it had to implement a policy of integration with Western allies that would inevitably deepen the German division, while at the same time it was deemed essential to affirm the temporal possibility of a future

79 Pfister, Europa im Bild. 80 See Reimers, “Begegnung im Kreml,” and Schröder, “Wahlkampfbilder.” Reimers’ publication is a transcript of a 1983 discussion between students and veterans of the newsreel profession about Meeting in the Kremlin, the 1956 film on Adenauer’s state visit to the Soviet union in 1955; Schröder’s insightful 2007 article analyzes two PR films on Adenauer’s state visits to the US (1953 and 1957) as CDU election propaganda. 81 See Doris Sommer, Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). I am indebted to Katherine Arens for alerting me to this similarity.

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German reunification. Central in these PR tasks was to invite affective identification with the chancellor and his political project through Adenauer’s image as a father of the nation.82 After these considerations, the chapter outlines the efficiency of Adenauer’s screen image as a function of discourses of paternalism, charismatic masculine leadership, and religion. Of particular interest in this discussion is the image’s capability to deliberately access and overwrite collective memory. The chapter then discusses in detail the main foundational themes of the PR films as discourses that articulate the rationale of Adenauer’s political approach to Western integration (Westbindung): a) promoting a stable democracy in a war-torn, post-fascist country; b) introducing a social market economy; and c) introducing German rearmament. Chapter two assesses the Adenauer government’s attitudes towards the questions of propaganda and political PR, and how the Federal Press Office and the Deutsche Wochenschau emerged as production partners in turning these attitudes into effective, filmic government PR work. At its onset, the chapter details the Adenauer government’s ongoing struggle to obtain control of the democratic West German media system installed by the Western Allies. That struggle began at the onset of Adenauer’s chancellorship and lasted until the early 1960s, with the unsuccessful initiative to create a state-controlled television network and the “Spiegel affair” of 1962 as the last two prominent efforts. The chapter argues that the failure in these efforts explains the recurrent use of the Deutsche Wochenschau as government PR outlet. After brief sketches of the Press Office’s and the Deutsche Wochenschau’s respective histories and functioning as state-dependent entities in the Adenauer government’s PR apparatus, the chapter reveals the typical way in which a PR film was commissioned, what desired political messages the government envisioned, and how these exacting specifications were translated into film by the Deutsche Wochenschau’s camera operators and editors. Based on the correspondence between the Press Office and the Deutsche Wochenschau regarding these matters, this overview introduces the basic facts about the PR films’ circumstances of production, such as film synopses, time lines, and budgets, as well as the films’ distribution channels. Chapter three examines the PR films’ persuasive strategies embedded in their reporting on Adenauer’s official visits to the US, and on the reciprocal visits by US Presidents to the Federal Republic and West Berlin, as a particularly distinct manifestation of a “stability discourse” embedded

82 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 360–1. This part of the analysis builds on Uta Schwarz’s examination of Adenauer’s screen image in the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel. Schwarz, Wochenschau, 352–66.

Introduction

29

in nation-building.83 The organizing pattern for the US state visit films, the stability discourse attributes Adenauer’s crucial and indispensable position in the Federal Republic’s success story to his political expertise and international prestige. Together with the campaign slogan “no experiments,” the stability discourse frames German–American relations as a narrative of consolidation and equal partnership, led by Adenauer. The development of concomitant nation-building and stability is assessed in a succession of seven films, from the humble A Man Advocates for his People (1953), to 1963’s confident The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy (Deutschland grüßt Kennedy). A close reading of selected scenes from these films reveals that by presenting Adenauer as the sole guarantor of West Germany’s economic and foreign policy successes, the films suggest to viewers that any deviation from the political course plotted by the chancellor would pose a serious risk to the Federal Republic. Against the backdrop of the Cold War global confrontation of the political systems, these particular films emphasize the steadily solidifying transatlantic relationship to the USA as a powerful military ally key to the socioeconomically defined concept of stability in the Federal Republic. Chapter four analyzes the film Meeting in the Kremlin (1956), which reports on Adenauer’s only state visit to the Soviet Union that took place in the summer of 1955. As a manifestation of a “Cold Warrior discourse,” it frames the West German federal chancellor as an integral figure in the Western Cold War effort and highlights his stance of antiCommunism. As a report on a state visit to a non-friendly nation, Meeting in the Kremlin occupies a unique position among the PR films. This visit brought about what is often regarded as Adenauer’s most significant diplomatic success of the 1950s: the successful negotiation of the release of Germany’s last remaining 10,000 POWs. Adenauer’s triumphant return from the old Bolshevik and present Communist enemy in the film is presented through symbolism aimed to perform an important healing work on the West German collective memory of the defeat and occupation by the Red Army. The film’s portrayal of the POWs’ reception in West Germany represents a repatriation of the POW into the Federal Republic’s social fabric, and a collective working through loss and suffering. Central to this endeavor is the figure of the POW, which the film uses to manufacture a narrative that shifted the memory of Germany’s role in the Second World War from perpetrator of crimes against humanity to one of suffering endured by a heroic community.

83 “Particularly distinct” is used here since the different discourses appear in more or less all of the PR films. However, they emerge as organizing principles in the respective chapters devoted to them.

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Chapter five looks at two films reporting on Adenauer’s and French President Charles de Gaulle’s 1962 reciprocal state visits, 1962’s Two Nations Reconcile (Zwei Völker versöhnen sich), and The Path into the Future (1962). The analysis examines a “reconciliation discourse,” staged and featured at the heart of the films’ narratives through performative acts of reconciliation by Adenauer and De Gaulle. In this regard, the films are designed to prepare the ground in West Germany for the Franco-German sociopolitical, economic, and military cooperation that came in the aftermath of the Élysée Treaty of 1963. The analysis illustrates that through a deliberate omission of German guilt in the two world wars, the films level the “moral balance” between the two nations, a necessary precondition for a sociopolitical reconciliation on equal terms. Capitalizing on the extraordinary relationship between Adenauer and de Gaulle, and through the deliberate overwriting of Franco-German memory spaces of past conflict with new images of reconciliation and partnership offered by the politicians, the films manufacture a narrative of a “historic” turn in the two countries’ histories that provides symbolic closure to a tumultuous past. Chapter six looks at two films that present and explain the Federal Republic’s provisional capital Bonn to West Germans, 1961’s Visiting Bonn, and Koblenzer Strasse 99-103: A Workday at the Foreign Office (Koblenzer Strasse 99-103: Alltag des Auswärtigen Amts) of the same year, through a “discourse of connectedness.” It organizes the films’ narratives around a central system of symbols that posit Bonn as an effective center of Western policymaking, one whose diplomatic footprint reaches around the world. The films also address the widespread public impression that money was being “wasted” on a capital that was merely “provisional,” and raise public awareness about the town’s government functions. Both films depict the city as an appropriate capital for a new, decidedly Western, modest, and non-militaristic Germany. This is to awaken sympathy for the largely unloved West German capital, and to discourage any renewed political campaigns that had the potential to hamper Bonn’s further development as capital, such as the “building freeze” of 1956 and a concomitant initiative by politicians and journalists to move the capital to West Berlin. In order to underline Bonn’s provisional status pending a future reunification that would reinstate Berlin as the German capital, Visiting Bonn describes the town as a capital connected to the entire world while at the same time breathing the spirit of quaint provinciality. In a similar vein, Koblenzer Strasse 99-103 uses the Federal Republic’s Foreign Office in Bonn as a symbol for the Federal Republic’s peaceful, diplomatic presence in world politics, an active part of the Cold War alliance against Communism, that is engaged in global projects promoting what by the early 1960s has become the “West German way” of prosperity and peace.

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Chapter seven analyzes two PR films, The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday (Der 85. Geburtstag des Bundeskanzlers, 1961), and In the Service of the Fatherland (Um das Vaterland verdient gemacht, 1963). Both films, made close to or right after Adenauer’s retirement from the chancellorship in October 1963, convey a “father of the nation discourse,” offering the audience an affective identification with their chancellor. Reporting solely on the celebrations revolving around Adenauer’s eighty-fifth birthday, The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday depicts the festivities as a birthday party organized and celebrated by the patriarch’s “extended family,” the grateful West German population.84 The film is also indicative of a problematic continuity of the Kaiserreich and Third Reich genre of the tribute film into democracy. The continuities in the depiction of charismatic masculine leadership from Hitler to Adenauer are surveyed through a brief comparison of the film with the Ufa-Tonwoche (Nr. 451) on Hitler’s fiftieth birthday. Accompanying Adenauer’s resignation as chancellor and his entering history, In the Service of the Fatherland enumerates Adenauer’s political achievements to posit him as a statesman of unique and historic stature. Drawing the analyses of the preceding chapters together, the conclusion centers on a detailed discussion of the democratic imaginary encoded in the PR films that illustrate flashpoints of the West German nation-building process. Seminal in this discussion is the films’ defense of Adenauer’s dogma of Western integration through reference to the Federal Republic “having come a long way” on its path to freedom and prosperity. West Germany’s socioeconomic alliances with the US and France, its fierce anti-Communism vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, as well as Bonn’s status as respected capital and metaphor for the new, postfascist Germany, and Adenauer’s characteristic depiction as a beloved pater patriae all argue this point. The conclusion then looks at factors that arguably distinguish these public relation films from factors ordinarily associated with broader definitions of the concept of propaganda. In the age of media expansion and its extension into the daily lives of citizens around the world, the fine line between truth and fiction is increasingly the responsibility of the informed and thoughtful receiver of supposedly factual material. Current developments in Western democracies towards authoritarianism and a continuing fascination with ostensibly charismatic masculine leader figures argue this point. This is an important question this study raises but is unable to address due to space and thematic limitations. 84 The concept of the “West German extended family” is based on Uta Schwarz’s expression “new West German ‘family,’ ” a result of Adenauer’s image as father of the nation based on a “relationship of authority between a father and his children.” Schwarz, Wochenschau, 360.

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The study concludes by underlining the importance of an ongoing awareness about the rules applied in the production of the Deutsche Wochenschau films. Parallels in governmental media narratives between the Adenauer and the Merkel administrations suggest that Merkel’s Press Office found its own “government channel” for filmic PR narratives in the German media landscape in the video platform YouTube.

One Foundational Narratives

Introduction This chapter establishes the PR films’ role in the Federal Republic’s sociopolitical project of reconstruction during its founding years, which this book understands as extending though the entire Adenauer period of 1949–63. After a review of the West German road to nationhood, this chapter discusses the federal government’s PR needs for the PR films: to manage the aftermath of contradictions at the heart of the Federal Republic’s founding as a successor state of the Third Reich and one that sought Western integration while at the same time reaffirming the desire for reunification with the East. Both challenges were dominated by a complex pattern of breaks and continuities. The chapter then moves on to a discussion of Konrad Adenauer’s patriarchal image as an elderly father of the nation, who wisely guided the Federal Republic through the Cold War minefield and how this image was instrumental in propagating the films’ PR objectives. While as individual PR statements they are organized along the PR discourses presented in the introduction, in their entirety, the PR films are all based on several underlying, foundational values of the Federal Republic. These values all articulate different aspects of Adenauer’s political dogma of Western integration. The chapter ends with a detailed discussion of these themes: a) promoting a stable democracy in a wartorn, post-fascist country; b) introducing a social market economy; and c) introducing German rearmament. These foundational values form the PR films’ ideological foundation, accessed by the films to address the main sociopolitical challenges the Adenauer administration encountered during its campaign of West German nation-building. The PR films are products of their era—they were designed to work efficiently in the cultural context of the postwar project of recovery in West Germany, a period of extremely limited incomes, entertainment options, and opportunities for travel. The experience of a fascist dictatorship had limited the familiarity with democratic institutions, as well as a critical understanding of the media’s role in the democratic process. TVs were not yet ubiquitous, and film and the cinema were

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still the predominant entertainment options of the day. In the PR films’ enumerations of what they describe as the successes won under Adenauer’s leadership, and by insisting that the country was “on track” to an even brighter future, the PR films emerge as a state-sanctioned national imaginary, managed by a state-controlled master narrative of success. This narrative manifests itself in the PR films though the five different discourse patterns that this book analyzes as constitutive elements of the films in the different chapters: the stability discourse on the transatlantic partnership with the US (chapter three); the Cold Warrior discourse demarcating opposition to the Soviet Union (chapter four); the reconciliation discourse on the Franco-German rapprochement (chapter five); the discourse of connectedness on the new capital Bonn (chapter six); and the father of the nation discourse on Adenauer (chapter seven). In their deliberate framing of specific political events and by arranging this footage in persuasive filmic messages, the PR films provide foundational narratives that closely resemble Doris Sommer’s notion of “foundational fictions,”1 which she identified in South American nineteenth-century romantic novels. Through their powerful and integrative narratives about the new nation, and through their “idealized projections of the future of the country,”2 the PR films invite affective identification with the new West German state and its leader, Adenauer. They represent deliberately constructed and heavily edited filmic snapshots of a new West German national identity emerging from a sociopolitical fabric still ravaged by the catastrophic experience of the Second World War.

The Road to Nationhood The Adenauer period cannot be understood without considering that it was to no small degree determined by the experience of the early years of hardship and the catastrophic end of the Third Reich, as well as by the steadily ossifying German division. Therefore, before this chapter will delve deeper into a discussion of the main political principles encoded in the PR films, a brief review of West Germany’s origins as a destroyed and occupied country after the Second World War is necessary. When the Federal Republic was founded in 1949, West Germans had lived through four years of extreme hardship. They had lost their 1 2

Sommer, Foundational Fictions. Kiley Guyton, “Lúcia Murat’s Brave New Land as an Anti-Foundational Fiction,” Lúcia Murat’s Brave New Land as an Anti-Foundational Fiction, http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/ciberletras/v14/guyton.htm (accessed March 23, 2017).

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national identity and were left with both emotional and physical deprivations. To mention only the most demoralizing: revelations about systematic mass murder in concentration camps and slave labor during the years of National Socialism; the devastation of nearly all of the major cities and industrial complexes; the extreme cold of the winter 1945/6 leading to deaths from hunger and lack of adequate living facilities; the over 12 million German ethnic refugees who streamed into what would emerge as the four occupation zones between 1944 and 1950; the acutely felt absence of men lost in the war or still interred in prison camps; and the unconditional surrender of the German troops and the subsequent military occupation by the four victorious Allied powers the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, and the US. Acerbating these conditions, in the absence of a national government and a valid currency, the Black Market and its barter systems had become the media of exchange—an economic situation out of control.3 Two factors lead to a dramatic change in the economic and political identity of Germans and the attitudes of the Western occupation powers in the roughly four years between the military defeat on May 8, 1945 and the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany on May 23, 1949. The first was a recognition that a new adversary, the Soviet Union, the former war ally against Germany, had become the new enemy as summed up in Winston Churchill’s “iron curtain” speech of 1946.4 From the outset of their uneasy joint occupation in the summer of 1945, the US, France, and Britain had experienced the failure of the Soviet Union to cooperate with helping a devastated Germany recover and its failing to provide its share of foodstuffs and rebuilding materials in spite of joint agreements. By 1946, the three Western powers had begun to agree that a divided Germany could readily be absorbed under Soviet control. The Truman administration responded in two major ways between 1947 and 1948: first with the Marshall Plan for rebuilding Europe as a whole and including the three West German zones in the process,

3 4

See for example Konrad Jarausch’s account of the immediate postwar conditions: Jarausch, After Hitler, 3–4. “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.” Winston Churchill, “The Sinews of Peace,” Westminster College, Fulton MS, March 5, 1946, http://www. winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1946-1963-elder-statesman/120-thesinews-of-peace (accessed March 17, 2017).

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second by addressing the currency problem. The solution was a currency reform of June 20, 1948, spearheaded on the West German side by Adenauer’s later Minister of Economics, Ludwig Erhard. This reform was valid only in the three West occupation zones and West Berlin. It replaced the inflated Reichsmark with a guaranteed hard currency, the Deutsche Mark (DM). This effort returned goods to storefronts, enabled financial investment, and a rebuilding of German industry. Overnight, the restitution of purchasing power proved an effective counter to the Black Market (Schwarzmarkt) in the Western Zones. Throughout, these changes were communicated and explained through the Allied newsreels in the Western Zones of occupation. For example, the joint US–British occupation newsreel Welt im Film of January 22, 1948 reported on a joint conference of the British and American Military Governors with the Minister Presidents of the West German Bi-Zone regarding negotiations on economic policy. The commentary stresses the communal aspect of the negotiations and argues: “The joint negotiations led to a series of resolutions that will ensure a faster economic recovery of the Bi-Zone” (0:54).5 The Allies’ extended use of newsreels to explain their occupational policies provided an important media policy blueprint for the Adenauer administration. The second dramatic change in the economic and political identity of West Germans occurred when the Soviet Union, recognizing that the Marshall Plan and the introduction of a common new currency in the Western Zones represented a major step towards their unification, responded with a move designed to undermine the credibility of the West. The Soviets aimed to take full control of the former Reich’s capital, Berlin, by blocking Western land access corridors to demonstrate the inferior strength and resolve of the Western powers as allies. Located deep in the Russian zone, an effectively blockaded Berlin would be denied access to food, electricity, coal, and virtually everything else needed to sustain a city of 2.2 million people. The US and Britain responded immediately with an unprecedented rescue move unanticipated by the Soviets: the Berlin Airlift. The Airlift was forced to rely on highly restricted airspace, three air corridors to West Berlin, that had been negotiated with the Soviet Union in November of 1945. From June 24, 1948 until May 12, 1949, the US and Britain maintained a stream of 24-hour flights in a complex pattern to enable independent survival of the citizens in the West Berlin zones. Every three minutes a cargo plane landed at Tempelhof airport in the

5

“Die gemeinsame Beratung führte zu einer Reihe von Beschlüssen, die eine schnellere wirtschaftliche Gesundung der Bi-Zone gewährleisten.” Welt im Film No. 139, January 22, 1948. Deutsche Wochenschau Archive Hamburg.

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US sector. Berliners came out in large numbers daily to applaud the planes and their pilots.The airlift was a demonstration of technological capability, resolve, and commitment that was shown on newsreels around the world. In West Germany, Welt im Film played an important role in providing Germans with progress reports on the Allied airlift that were important in maintaining the Allies’ positive image and political momentum: for example, in September of 1948, the newsreel showed the newly introduced C82 large freighter aircraft landing on the recently completed Tempelhof airfield and called the aircraft a “flying freight car and blockade runner” (0:19).6 Newsreel audiences in theaters in Europe and the US could appreciate both German gratitude and the West Berliners’ courage and tenacity, as embodied in Major Ernst Reuter’s iconic speech of September 9, 1948,7 supporting this effort. The airlift was a galvanizing moment in the relationship between West Germans and the Western Allies, particularly the US and Great Britain. Attitudes towards former Second World War enemies changed. Recognizing defeat in May of 1949, Russia withdrew the blockade. The stage for a West German nation had been set. As the first step to initiate the new state, through the so-called Frankfurt Documents (Frankfurter Dokumente) of July 1, 1948, the Western Allies stipulated that a Western German nation that excluded the East Zone was to be formed after the creation of a Parliamentary Council (Parlamentarischer Rat). That body was staffed with the leaders of two major political parties from the Weimar period that had not actively supported the Nazi regime. These included the reinstated Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Zentrum, a party of

6 7

“Fliegender Güterwagen als Blockadebrecher.” Welt im Film No. 174, September 27, 1948. Deutsche Wochenschau Archive. “Ihr Völker der Welt, ihr Völker in Amerika, in England, in Frankreich, in Italien! Schaut auf diese Stadt und erkennt, daß ihr diese Stadt und dieses Volk nicht preisgeben dürft und nicht preisgeben könnt! Es gibt nur eine Möglichkeit für uns alle: gemeinsam so lange zusammenzustehen, bis dieser Kampf gewonnen, bis dieser Kampf endlich durch den Sieg über die Feinde, durch den Sieg über die Macht der Finsternis besiegelt ist.” “People of the world . . . . look upon this city! You cannot, you must not, forsake us! There is only one possibility for all of us: to stand together until this fight has been won, until the fight has finally been settled through victory over the enemies, through victory over the force of darkness.” “Ernst Reuters Rede am 9. September 1948 vor dem Reichstag,” Berlin.de, https://www.berlin.de/berlin-im-ueberblick/geschichte/artikel.453082.php (accessed April 4, 2017). English translation: German History in Documents and Images, “City Councilor Ernst Reuter Appeals to the ‘People of the World’ (September 9, 1948),” http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_image.cfm?image_id=1009 (accessed April 4, 2017).

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the Weimar Republic (1918/9–33), whose political base was instrumental in the formation of its postwar successor, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Again, Welt im Film kept West Germans updated on the rapid developments, as in the edition of August 27, 1948, which reports on the conclusions of the negotiations. Among other things, this newsreel introduced the names of the new state’s two political chambers, Bundesrat and Bundestag (1:46).8 After the parliamentary council promulgated the Basic Law (Grundgesetz), during the first election of this hastily formed Federal Republic of Germany on August 14, 1949 the CDU emerged as the strongest party. Konrad Adenauer, a career politician from the Weimar Republic, a longtime mayor of Cologne, a passive resister during the Nazi period, and the President of the Parliamentary Council, became the first Federal Chancellor. It would be his job to lead West Germans, who had experienced a decade of traumatic events and cultural identities, into what now would, with this new citizenry, separate them from families and friends in the resulting division of East and West. This review situates the Federal Republic’s origins as inherently problematic with regard to the recent National Socialist past and the German–German present. As a result, the West German nation-building process unfolded in heavily debated and contested spurts, conflicted throughout the better part of the Adenauer years. The complex postwar situation in West Germany in the eyes of Adenauer and the media professionals at the Federal Press Office warranted a concerted media effort to provide context, meaning, and direction for the West German citizens.

The Deutsche Wochenschau as an Instrument of Nation-Building Adenauer recognized the need to rally public consciousness around his newly formed government. To assume a role in the emerging Cold War politics, he would be constrained to make unpopular decisions that had to be accepted by the new electorate if they were to succeed. These steps included, to name only the most pressing ones, moving the nation’s capital from the now inaccessible four-powers city Berlin to Bonn, entering into an alliance with former enemies that would eventually necessitate creating a German army in a country heartily 8

“Der ausgearbeitete Entwurf empfielt für das neue deutsche Staatsgebilde eine Bundesregierung, einen Bundestag, und einen Bundesrat (1:46).” “The finalized proposal recommends for the new state a federal government, a Bundestag, and a Bundesrat.” Welt im Film, No. 170, August 27, 1948. Deutsche Wochenschau Archive.

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tired of militarism, and socioeconomic rapprochement with former European enemies—most importantly the Western neighbor France. Moreover, Adenauer had to rebuild his nation on the basis of all available options, some of which would necessarily include the rehabilitation of individuals implicated by their fascist past, as well as incriminated industries who had worked closely with the Nazi regime such as Krupp and IG Farben. The chancellor turned to the best medium of his day to support these measures, to explain them to the population and West Germany’s allies, and maintain stability in this transition from nation-founding to nationbuilding: the West German newsreel system Deutsche Wochenschau, whose reimplementation as a state-operated industry free from direct Allied oversight basically coincided with the Federal Republic’s founding in 1949.9 Under Adenauer’s superintendence,10 the Deutsche Wochenschau was enlisted as government contractor in the West German nation-building process. This move had two major effects. First, through the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel, it augmented the West German newsreel market, heretofore made up entirely of Allied newsreels, with a West German voice that uncritically celebrated Adenauer and his politics. Second, apart from newsreel production, throughout Adenauer’s chancellorship from 1949 to 1963, the Deutsche Wochenschau created a steady succession of PR films that showcased Adenauer’s and the Federal Republic’s political successes in longer, dedicated narratives. The PR films represent an effort at creating a new collective postwar identity that was geared to help reorient Germans in a number of sociopolitical and economic contexts from the mentality of an occupied and defeated country between 1945 and 1949, to one of a confident member of the cultural West. In essence, the PR films were designed to invite West Germans to rethink and adapt their political allegiances and socioeconomic opinions and to place their trust in the Adenauer government. The PR films were conceived of and constructed by the Adenauer government to provide citizens with what they perceived as needed arguments for and explanations about the different steps in their nation-building process. This process went about with incredible speed. Often, as in the example of the contentious issue of West German rearmament around the time of the Bonn–Paris Conventions (Pariser

9 For detailed descriptions of the newsreel company’s founding, see Schwarz, Wochenschau, 73–9; Lehnert, Wochenschau und Tagesschau, 94–133. This will also be discussed in more detail in chapter two. 10 Uta Schwarz argues that Adenauer personally was engaged in the Deutsche Wochenschau’s founding. Schwarz, Wochenschau, 79.

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Verträge) of 1955 and West Germany’s subsequent accession to NATO,11 the political steps developed faster than the nation was able to follow in relating their personal experience of the recent years to the political steps undertaken by the government.12 These therefore needed extensive explanation and promotion vis-à-vis unresolved or still-lingering issues in the collective memory regarding the past and the national imaginary about the future. Regarding the West German NATO membership, for example, the films had to highlight the benefit of military security and argue that this outweighed the widely held reservations about once more bearing arms.

The Federal Government’s PR Needs: Managing Conflicting Desires The PR films were created to secure political consensus regarding some of the most controversial political aspects of the West German project of nation-building. Primary among these political challenges were Adenauer’s policy of Western integration in the face of an ever-ossifying German division, and the acceptance of parliamentary democracy as the most beneficial political form in a country that had just witnessed a traumatic transition from a fascist dictatorship. These challenges lie at the heart of this book’s interpretation of the PR films as managing conflicting desires. Many of the founding

11 The Bonn–Paris Conventions, which came into force on May 5, 1955, granted the Federal Republic political sovereignty. It ended the Statute of Occupation, which until then had granted the Western Allies far reaching powers in the Federal Republic’s economic, military, and foreign affairs. The Federal Republic’s sovereignty was, however, limited to exclude matters that concerned the German borders, among other things. Only with the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany of 1990 (Zwei-plus-Vier Vertrag) did the Federal Republic obtain full sovereignty. 12 The issue of rearmament was hotly contested both within the Bundestag and among the West German population, and it necessitated, among other things, a dedicated filmic PR campaign by the Federal Press Office. This campaign was primarily led through specific films made for that purpose, and not through the PR films discussed in this study as defined as “chancellor films,” and will not be discussed here. However, this study will comment on the PR film’s overall depiction of the NATO alliance’s benefits for the Federal Republic. On the debate in the Bundestag, see: Rudolf Walther, “1955: Die SPD als APO,” Der Freitag, January 28, 2015, https://www.freitag.de/autoren/der-freitag/1955die-spd-als-apo For an overview of the public’s concerns, see: April Carter, Peace Movements: International Protest and World Politics Since 1945 (New York: Routledge, 2014), 58–9. On the filmic PR campaign, see: Jan Uelzmann, “Promoting Western Integration in Rural West Germany: Governmental PR through the Mobilwerbung during the Early Adenauer Years, 1953–1955,” Forthcoming, Journal of Cold War Studies.

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discourses which unfolded in the Federal Republic during the Adenauer years were shaped by a common pattern of accepted contradiction. Apart from the issue of reintegrating former Nazis into the West German democratic process vis-à-vis the aim of demarcating a clear break with Nazism, this mainly concerned Adenauer’s pursuit of Western integration. This policy was highly contested since it invariably escalated the German division. While Adenauer recognized that the goal of irrevocably anchoring the Federal Republic in Western economic and defense networks outweighed the goal of a path to a German reunification through accommodation of the Soviets, his policies needed to continuously balance his goals against the popular wish for a speedy reunification. After all, prior to the building of the Berlin Wall on August 13, 1961, many West Germans still held the hope that a reunification might happen in a not too distant future. This book argues that this inherent dichotomy was constitutive to the Federal Republic’s beginnings, and that the PR films played an important role in explaining, moderating, and bridging it. A tolerated opposition between two political aims decisively shaped the negotiation of the relationship with the Allies and former Second World War enemies as West Germany transitioned from the Tri-Zone of 1948 to the Federal Republic under the Occupation Statute (between 1949 and 1955). Regarding this new, postwar “German question,” the pattern of contradiction developed right at the onset of preparations for the founding of a separate, West German state through the Frankfurt Documents in July of 1948. After all, this order delivered to the Minister Presidents of the Occupied Western Zones represented a deliberate split from the Soviet-occupied East, which according to West German public perception, negatively affected the chances for a German reunification. Faced with the Western Allied order to begin the planning for a separate West German state, the West German Minister Presidents found themselves in a profound moral dilemma.13 Terminology insisting on a sense of provisionality that emerged from the deliberations, such as “Basic Law” (Grundgesetz) or “provisional federal capital Bonn” (provisorische Bundeshauptstadt Bonn), speaks volumes about West German attempts to straddle the contradictions, still unsettled political developments, and tough decisions intrinsic to the new political

13 See for example Klaus Dreher, Treibhaus Bonn, Schaubühne Berlin: Deutsche Befindlichkeiten (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1999), 41; Falk Wiesemann, “Die Gründung des deutschen Weststaats und die Entstehung des Grundgesetzes,” in Westdeutschlands Weg Zur Bundesrepublik 1945–1949, ed. Institut für Zeitgeschichte (München: C.H. Beck, 1976), 124.

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beginning.14 For West Germans in 1948, the chance to once again carry political responsibility and to embark on a road that would eventually lead them to sovereignty carried the heavy price of a deliberate and potentially long-lasting separation from their fellow Germans living in the Soviet-occupied zone. A seemingly contradictory pattern emerged from such founding discourses in West Germany, which through all of their medial manifestations, popular presentations, and political discussions had to reconcile two general, yet conflicting desires. The wish for an immediate German reunification had to be brought into harmony with Adenauer’s policy of Western integration, while in the public eye, and to the critics of this political doctrine, Adenauer’s course made a reunification less likely. Shortly before the ratification of the Bonn–Paris Conventions granted the Federal Republic political sovereignty in 1955, SPD opposition leader Erich Ollenhauer argued in a letter to Adenauer that “[. . .] the ratification of the treaties would lead to ‘a disastrous ossification of the German division.’ In the final debates on the ratification in the Bundestag, Ollenhauer even sharpened this argument further by establishing a direct opposition between Western integration and reunification, while ignoring Soviet policy.”15 On the other hand, Adenauer’s political agenda in this new “German question” could easily be defended politically by referencing Soviet Cold War antagonism. At any rate, Adenauer’s political dogma of “reunification through Western integration,” which foresaw a reunification negotiated from a position of Western strength and unity in the Cold War conflict, and on the basis of free elections in East Germany, needed considerable elaboration and explanation.16

14 The term “provisional federal capital” (provisorische Bundeshauptstadt) remained in use in several variations until Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt referred to Bonn as the “federal capital” of West Germany in his government declaration of January 18, 1973. Jens Krüger, Die Finanzierung der Bundeshauptstadt Bonn (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 257. 15 Manfred Görtemaker, Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: von der Gründung bis zur Gegenwart (Munich: C.H.Beck, 1999), 327. 16 In the realm of the Federal Republic’s foreign policy, political historian Scott Erb speaks of “double consensus” when referring to a two-sidedness in the West German foreign policy that developed successively. Erb refers in this way to the combination of Western integration and Ostpolitik, which took place two decades apart from one another. The Federal Republic was thus firmly integrated into the West, but kept open multi-lateral channels and thus remained flexible to negotiate with the East. See: Scott Erb, German Foreign Policy: Navigating a New Era (Lynne Rienner Pub, 2003), 19–54. This stance differs from the phenomenon described here, which seeks to define the conflicting desires inherent to the very founding and installing of a West German state, and which carried through all of its existence until 1990.

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A second pattern of ostensibly contradictory policies emerged from the Federal Republic’s efforts to create a new, democratic state out of a population of ex-Nazis or “fellow travelers,” many of which were often skeptical, or downright dismissive of democracy, but needed integration into the Federal Republic’s workforce and social fabric nonetheless. While dubious on moral terms, Adenauer early on recognized that this project was absolutely crucial for establishing social peace in the new state. Among other things, his administration achieved this objective by ways of amnesty laws in 1949 and 1954 that protected perpetrators of “minor” crimes committed during the Nazi period from judicial consequences. In the words of Wolfgang Hardtwig, this represents a “systematic policy of exoneration and integration” that was broadly “expected” by the majority of West Germans.17 Many times, to later scandal, such implicated individuals were able to restart successful careers in government. This is evidenced by the extended public debate on the re-installment of countless former Third Reich officials into the new ministries, such as the scandal surrounding the staffing of the Foreign Office of 1951.18 While administrative experts were of course desperately needed, the Adenauer administration often had to tolerate or deliberately overlook these individuals’ implication in the Third Reich state and the atrocities committed in its name, a practice perhaps best embodied in the persona of Hans Globke, Adenauer’s Head of the Federal Chancellery from 1953 to 1963. As a member of the Third Reich Ministry of the Interior, Globke had been responsible for a “judicial” commentary to the Nuremberg Laws and was therefore implicated in the Nazi state’s murderous policies that enabled the Holocaust. Adenauer continuously ignored the widespread public criticism of Globke’s employment in the federal government, and Globke became his closest aide during his chancellorship.19

17 Wolfgang Hardtwig, “Von der ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’ zur Erinnerungskultur. Vom Umgang mit der NS-Vergangenheit in Deutschland,” in Modell Deutschland: Erfolgsgeschichte oder Illusion?, ed. Thomas Hertfelder and Andreas Rödder (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007), 173–4. For more information on this, see also: Norbert Frei, Adenauer’s Germany and the Nazi Past: The Politics of Amnesty and Integration (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). 18 Cf. Christoph Albrecht-Heider, “Deutsche Diplomaten: Die schwankenden Gestalten aus der Nazizeit,” fr-online.de, October 27, 2010, http://www.fronline.de/politik/deutsche-diplomaten-die-schwankenden-gestalten-aus-dernazizeit,1472596,4782048.html 19 For more information on Globke’s Third Reich past and his involvement in the Adenauer administration, see: Jürgen Bevers, Der Mann hinter Adenauer: Hans Globkes Aufstieg vom NS-Juristen zur grauen Eminenz der Bonner Republik, (Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 2009).

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Throughout, as the successor of the German Reich on legal terms, the Federal Republic had to carefully trace its roots in previous incarnations of the German nation state. These contradictions, between past and present, and between East and West, inform every aspect of the Deutsche Wochenschau’s output of PR films. They form a temporal and a geographical axis according to which the Federal Republic negotiated its sociopolitical course. Often, what emerged from this process was intrinsically complex, far from unanimously positive, and at times determined by unresolved contradiction. The analyses of this book reveal the PR films, both on the level of production and content, to be indicative of a West German nation-building process throughout which Germans repeatedly either severed ties with or selectively “decontaminated” and realigned aspects from their past (symbols, traditions, shared values, etc.) in order to integrate them into the complex postwar present. This stance reflects one of the Federal Republic’s founding principles: only by straddling the contradictions that shaped the West German political beginning could the project of sustaining a separate West German state on the Cold War frontlines be successful.

Staging Democracy: Promoting Foundational Values through Adenauer Konrad Adenauer’s image as an internationally respected elder statesman, together with the PR films’ perpetuation of his symbolic function as a German national patriarch that also appealed to East Germans, was paramount in developing the PR films’ message. It lent the still fragile concept of a separate West German state (and its selfunderstanding that it represented all Germans, East and West) a powerful and integrative figure. In this regard, the PR films are indicative of the continuity of carefully constructed, masculine images of leadership, and their central role in creating new national imaginaries.20 The analyses of Adenauer’s central role in the PR films build on premises established by Uta Schwarz’s examination of Adenauer’s screen image in the regular Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel.21 Schwarz underlines the Deutsche Wochenschau cameramen’s complicity in creating images of Adenauer that were geared to achieve “the highest possible level of acclaim.”22 Schwarz characterizes Adenauer’s function

20 The PR films’ continuation of the trope of charismatic masculine leadership will be discussed further in chapter six. 21 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 352–66. 22 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 357.

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in the newsreel as the object of a relationship, “in which the recipient assigns the public person such motives, powers, characteristics which are prohibited or out of reach for the person’s own self, so that the public person functions as an appropriate projection screen for wishes and longings of many, which remain individually unfulfilled.”23 Through Adenauer as a “projection screen” regarding their own aspirations and anxieties,24 West German audiences were provided with an immediate and emotional conduit to world politics. Honors bestowed upon Adenauer during state visits were thus directly transferred to the PR film audience, as were instances of manipulation of collective Second World War memory that sought to replace remembrances of enmity with new images of partnership. This aspect will be central to the following analyses. Adenauer in the PR films reflected and through his person “embodied” decisiveness and experience in political matters, and international respect for West Germany. Both provided an important stabilizing factor for the establishing of a West German democracy. Adenauer’s status as symbolical figurehead and “affective connection to the sphere of politics” was decisively strengthened through the PR films’ portrayal of Adenauer as a national father figure, similar to his portrayal in the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel.25 The beginnings of Adenauer’s explicitly paternalistic image can be traced back to the gear-up for the 1953 federal election. Lars Rosumek argues that in 1952, due to a difficult year for the CDU on terms of polling numbers, Adenauer underwent a “personalization strategy,” during which “Adenauer was coached” to adopt the image of the father of the nation: At least from this moment on, he was staged as ‘father of the fatherland.’ After each of his appearances, the Deutschlandlied was played, in order to strengthen the image of the chancellor party and the pater patriae with the help of an occupation of national symbols. This role was certainly befitting Adenauer’s age, and in addition, it fulfilled the audience’s expectations. Through his experience and his age, Adenauer was able to reach out to many people who were yearning for an ethical father figure after the bitter experiences of the Third Reich. Adenauer was perceived more than any other chancellor as a father figure. Cardinal Frings said during his burial service in the Cologne Cathedral: ‘We mourn him like a father.’26

23 24 25 26

Schwarz, Wochenschau, 352–3. Schwarz, Wochenschau, 360. Schwarz, Wochenschau, 360–1. Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien, 68.

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Rosumek’s account reflects on the Adenauer administration’s efforts to reinstate an ideal of masculine leadership in the early Federal Republic, and to tie the notions of democracy and Adenauer’s paternal authority together. This strategy lies at the heart of the PR films’ narratives. Correspondingly, Adenauer’s image as father of the nation imitated the workings of a German “national family.”27 Schwarz alludes to this concept when she observes that “Adenauer’s depiction in the newsreels conveyed for both the private and political sphere the concept of a relationship of authority between father and children, based on emotional ties, free of conflict and hierarchical.”28 In their famous essay The Inability to Mourn, Margarethe and Alexander Mitscherlich argue among other things that West Germans’ affections for Adenauer reflected a renewed turn to a father figure to fill the void left by the traumatic end of Nazism and the absence of the Führer Hitler.29 West Germans’ search for a new authority and the concomitant turn to Adenauer thereby represented a “reminiscence” of a “reign of an ages-old patriarchal authority,” this time to one formed during the Kaiserreich.30 According to Schwarz, the pater patriae Adenauer functions as a father figure in a “fatherless society”: If one assumes that Adenauer functioned as an identification figure on the political level, but on the societal level as a projection figure representing the desired, that what was not attained and absent, the interpretation comes naturally that this image of a pater patriae corresponded to the desires and utopias of a society for which Alexander Mitscherlich diagnosed ‘fatherlessness’ as a basic psychological need.31 On these terms, the father figure embodied by Adenauer, and the ostensible authority and structure that it represented through his social and political conservatism that harkened back to pre-1933 times offered West Germans an identification figure that allowed them to bracket the Third Reich period and rally around the Federal Republic’s project of

27 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 360. Robert G. Moeller uses this concept in conjunction with Adenauer’s image as father of the nation as well. Robert G. Moeller, War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany (University of California Press, 2003), 89. 28 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 360. 29 Alexander Mitscherlich and Margarete Mitscherlich, Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern: Grundlagen kollektiven Verhaltens (München: Piper Taschenbuch, 2007), 13–85. 30 Alexander Mitscherlich and Margarete Mitscherlich, Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern, 22. 31 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 360.

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establishing economic prosperity. This process, as the Mitscherlichs argue, was intrinsically connected to a collective denial and a suppression of the traumatic Second World War past and the realities of its postwar aftermath.32 In this regard, Adenauer’s image as the pater patriae was key to the creation of a new and forward-looking West German national myth centered on reconstruction of economy and family. Adenauer’s image as father of the nation was also closely associated to a conservative family politics that again strongly focused on the father figure. The Adenauer administration quite literally sought to transfer the ideal of a paternalistic father as embodied by Adenauer onto the postwar West German family, an endeavor best reflected by the family politics embodied by Adenauer’s Minister of Family Affairs, Franz-Josef Wuermeling. In the aftermath of the Second World War and the widespread absence of husbands and men in general, Wuermeling’s policies pursued a reinstating of conservative family values centered on a male breadwinner and a re-domestication of women, who prior had established their own positions as heads of households. In this regard, they were a central part of what Hanna Schissler has called “the project of ‘normalization’ ” during the West German 1950s.33 An apt example is the Law on the Equality of Men and Women (Gleichberechtigungsgesetz) of 1957, which, in spite of its title, “codified [. . .] the patriarchal gender order by assigning to the fathers the ultimate authority and by reinforcing the paradigm of the ‘homemaker-marriage’ (Hausfrauenehe)” for women.34 As the book’s opening has illustrated, Adenauer’s screen image was not complete until it was charged with religious associations that, however subtle, sought to liken Adenauer to a charismatic masculine savior, or, as in the example from the introduction, a Christian redeemer figure. The PR films’ narratives regularly draw attention to Adenauer’s Catholic faith, even if they abstain from the overtly explicit references

32 Alexander Mitscherlich and Margarete Mitscherlich, Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern, 13–14, 19. 33 Hanna Schissler, “ ‘Normalization’ as Project: Some Thoughts on Gender Relations in West Germany during the 1950,” in The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949–1968, ed. Hanna Schissler (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2001), 360. For a detailed discussion, see: 359–75. 34 Till van Rahden, “Demokratie und väterliche Autorität. Das Karlsruher” Stichentscheid “-Urteil von 1959 in der politischen Kultur der frühen Bundesrepublik.” Zeithistorische Forschungen / Studies in Contemporary History 2, no. 2 (2005): 162, 160. As van Rahden elaborates, the paternal authority gets challenged in 1959, when the Federal Constitutional Court rejects the “paternal override,” which in the original legal code of 1957 granted the father the last word in all questions relating to the education of a family’s children.

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to Christ as in the unreleased material from the introduction. These references make the Christian–Catholic tradition a constitutive element of Adenauer’s particular brand of paternalistic politics in the PR films. According to Sven Glawion, Elahe Haschemi, and Jana HusmanKastein, the figure of Christ and Christian stories of redemption are intricately connected to “Western narratives and phantasms, which accompany the manufacture and stabilization of masculine power.” The scholars identify “manifold appropriations of the history(ies) of Christ” in contemporary Western narratives and argue that “the latter has become a figure, a formalized character that can be deployed in motivic fashion. The character is a major point of reference when speaking about the triumph over evil, about overcoming the darkness, or about the creative power of devotion and pain.”35 Intrinsically connected to these processes is the figure of the male redeemer, which the authors localize in literature, film, the fine arts, politics, and science. As narrative and image-based references they generate communicative-strategic frameworks for political, cultural, and scientific production of knowledge. Within the occidental tradition of redeemer figures, European knights and soldiers, White [sic] colonialists and missionaries, leaders of movements, doctors and scientists, superfathers (Über-Väter) and sons murdering their fathers, as well as postmodern Hollywood heroes ‘invent themselves’ as instances that ostensibly generate culture, found civilizations, and lead humanity to its destination.36 In the incarnations mentioned above, Christian images of masculine redeemers thus enter narratives of nationhood, politics, or simply entertainment. The PR films allude to the trope of Adenauer as redeemer through subtle comparisons that reference the chancellor’s Christian faith, while abstaining from the direct likening of Adenauer to Christ discussed in the introduction. The myth of the redeemer is also often used in more secular fashion through references that emphasize Adenauer’s “sacrifices” for Germany through his devotion to his work as federal chancellor. Adenauer’s image as a paternalistic leader and redeemer figure not only provides the PR films’ audiences with an “affective connection to 35 Sven Glawion, Elahe Haschemi, and Jana Husman-Kastein, “Einleitung,” in Erlöser: Figurationen Männlicher Hegemonie, by Sven Glawion, Elahe Haschemi, and Jana Husman-Kastein, Transcript Verlag (Bielefeld, 2007), 13. 36 Glawion, Haschemi, and Husman-Kastein, “Einleitung,” 14–15.

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the sphere of politics,”37 but it also allows the films to deliberately address collective memory through a medialized version of reality that is deliberately selective and subjective. In this context, Aleida Assmann and Linda Shortt remind us that “collective memories are produced through mediated representations of the past that involve selecting, rearranging, re-describing, and simplifying, as well as the deliberate, but also perhaps unintentional, inclusion and exclusion of information.”38 The following analyses of the PR films will illustrate this concept at work for the aims of the Adenauer administration. In the course of the PR films’ appeal to German collective memory, they frequently surpass the stage of merely re-arranging or selective remembrance by engaging in a process of overwriting of collective memory that replaces existing associations with new ones. This often involves replacing past associations of the Second World War-related trauma or uncomfortable narratives of German perpetration with new and forward-looking symbolisms of cooperation and partnership between former Second World War enemies. Historian Simone Derix has identified this as a central pattern of state visits to the Federal Republic.39 The PR films exploit and reinforce the events’ symbolisms, even creating new ones through commentary and editing. Through the overwritings of German collective memory associated with essential memory spaces through acts or statements by Adenauer and others, the PR films are able to access and manipulate German collective memory in a very targeted fashion. Based on these observations, the following chapters argue that Adenauer’s depiction in the PR films invited affective identification and served as a powerful anchor for a new German identity still under intense negotiation. The father of the nation discourse discussed in chapter seven illustrates in detail how the PR films used Adenauer’s image as pater patriae to sell policy, create an impression of Adenauer as the metonymic representative of the Federal Republic, and to prepare a political legacy of the federal chancellor on film.

37 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 360–1. 38 Aleida Assmann and Linda Shortt, “Memory and Political Change: An Introduction,” in Memory and Political Change, ed. Aleida Assmann and Linda Shortt, 2012 edition (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 3–4. 39 Simone Derix argues that Charles de Gaulle “deliberately sought out situations and locations” with associations to the Third Reich past, in order to “overwrite” them with “images he offered” during his 1962 state visit to West Germany. Simone Derix, Bebilderte Politik: Staatsbesuche in der Bundesrepublik 1949–1990. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009), 138–41. This will be discussed in detail in chapter five.

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Staging Democracy: The PR Films’ Underlying Foundational Values By means of Adenauer as a patriarchal figure that invited audience identification and allowed for the deliberate manipulation of collective memory, the PR films addressed and supported those policies that were intrinsically connected to Adenauer’s project of Western integration. Due to the Federal Republic’s inherent contradictions, these were most controversial in public discussion during the immediate founding period of 1949–55:40 parliamentary democracy, social market economy, and West German rearmament. While these cornerstones of domestic and foreign policy are present as steady undercurrents in each of the films discussed, they are rarely mentioned explicitly. Instead, these foundational values form the basis upon which the PR discourses identified in the following chapters are built upon.

Parliamentary democracy The PR films were instrumental in providing their audiences with a favorable image of the newly adopted political system of parliamentary democracy. Since the films enumerated the Federal Republic’s political and economic successes and thus held the potential to help convince skeptics and die-hard Nazis (ewig Gestrige), they were a crucial means to help lend stability to the young state’s political beginnings. Through their reiterative portrayals of parliamentary work under Adenauer’s leadership that was paired with an enumeration of “successes” ostensibly derived from the democratic process,41 they accounted for a growing momentum of the PR message that “democracy works” for West Germans. The Adenauer administration faced the monumental task of forging a nation out of a torso-like territory that was populated by an extremely polarized and heterogeneous group of Germans determined by vast sociopolitical differences, backgrounds, cultures, and experiences. More than 8 million expellees from the former Eastern Reich provinces had streamed into the West German territory by 1950 and needed to be integrated, with many of them clinging to the hope of one day returning to what they had lost. The Saar region had been decoupled from the Federal Republic’s territory by the French during the occupation period

40 1955 marked the end of the Occupation Statue through the Bonn–Paris Conventions, which granted the new state limited political sovereignty, and the subsequent NATO membership. 41 For example, through excerpts from Adenauer’s speeches enumerating diplomatic accomplishments in front of the Bundestag, as in 1956’s Meeting in the Kremlin (23:17).

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and would only officially join the Federal Republic in 1959, while the former capital and national signifier of the German Reich Berlin remained divided into four sectors and legally not part of the Federal Republic. The population comprised former victims of Nazi repression, German expellees, people who had either secretly or openly opposed the regime, “fellow travelers” (Mitläufer), and a considerable amount of individuals whom the Allied occupiers had labeled as criminals due to their varying associations with the Nazi regime, varying from small fry to ranking members of the Nazi leadership. Particularly the West Germans who were in various ways associated with the Nazi party harbored great skepticism or even animosity towards democracy. The situation was especially tense before the successes of the economic miracle made West Germans “democrats through consumption.”42 In 1952, a full 25 percent of West Germans still had a “good opinion” of Adolf Hitler.43 Contemporary Allensbach opinion polls commissioned by the CDU show that in 1955, six years into the Federal Republic, 31 percent of West Germans still wished for a strongman to decide things instead of a democratic system. Only 55 percent favored a political process with several people making decisions.44 Based on these numbers, it can easily be extrapolated that throughout the entire Adenauer years, there existed a pronounced need to legitimize democracy. Germans had just recently seen the consecutive failure of three German states, with the most recent one, the Third Reich, ending in a disaster of unprecedented humanitarian proportions. Older Germans in particular had witnessed first-hand the demise of Kaiserreich during the chaotic events of the November Revolution in 1918. They then had lived through the politically and economically unstable Weimar Republic (1918/9–33) that had ended with Hitler’s election as Reich chancellor, and in the poignant symbolism of the Reichstag fire in 1933. Others spent their formative years as sociopolitical subjects during the Third Reich (1933–45) and may even have taken an active part in the Nazi state and its totalitarian institutions. In sum, in 1945, according to historian Konrad Jarausch, “the conditions for democratization did not seem to be particularly favorable. Only a small minority, above all the regime’s opponents and its victims, actually greeted the defeat of the Wehrmacht as a liberation from the dictatorship.”45

42 Michael Wildt, “Changes in Consumption as Social Practice in West Germany during the 1950s,” 316. 43 Tony Judt, Postwar, 58. 44 “Die Meinung über Bonn, 1951–1955,” Allensbach Institut (KAS Archiv I-172035/1), 18. 45 Jarausch, After Hitler, 9.

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As a result of their disillusionment with either democracy or fascism, many West Germans withdrew into the private realm and avoided any overt engagement with politics. This effect lasted well into the Federal Republic. An Allensbach poll of 1955 found that “apparently we find ourselves in a phase in which the people in West Germany are selfconcerned to a very large degree—to such an extent actually, that they grant only limited attention to politics.”46 Besides the widespread political pessimism, to many, the question how to provide for themselves and their loved ones during the material crises of the late 1940s and early 1950s superseded any desire to once more become engaged in the name of any political idea. Since the founding of the Federal Republic coincided with a time of apolitical restraint brought on by material crises, or by disillusionment or outright sympathy for the “Führer,”47 it became paramount to ensure a proper identification with the new state’s democratic system. Therefore, the Adenauer administration saw a pressing need to emphasize its successes while underlining that they had been brought forth by democracy, and to highlight the international prestige that both Adenauer and the new state had in the meantime accumulated. Accordingly, instead of trying to persuade Germans of the validity of democracy on intellectual, or even theoretical grounds, the PR films describe the West German democracy as the best system for all West Germans by presenting an enumeration of successes that manifested themselves increasingly during the second half of the 1950s. In this regard, they differ fundamentally from the Allied re-education films that explained to Germans how to become democrats. In contrast, the PR films did not directly advertise democracy. Instead, through a lighthearted and entertaining narrative that avoided political or procedural detail, the films advertised the benefits of the new system. Democracy, the films rationalize, provided West Germans both with the economic upturn also known as the economic miracle, with the respect of the Western international community, as well as with freedom and security through the military protection of a new ally, the United States. Through a negative portrayal of ostensibly aggressive and repressive Eastern Bloc policies, the PR films also render democracy as the morally right system. All of this set the Federal Republic sharply apart from the

46 “Offensichtlich befinden wir uns in einer Phase, in welcher die Menschen in Westdeutschland sehr stark mit sich selbst beschäftigt sind – so stark übrigens, daß sie der Politik nur eine reduzierte Aufmerksamkeit widmen.” “Das Soziale Klima (II) 1951–1954,” Allensbach Institut (KAS Archiv I-172-035/1), 31. 47 Konrad Jarausch argues that many devoted former Nazis had felt “betrayed” by Hitler and National Socialism, and were “filled with self-pity” vis-à-vis the great void its sudden disappearance had left in their lives. Jarausch, After Hitler, 9.

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“failing” German Democratic Republic in the PR films. Only the new democratic system implemented under Adenauer’s decisive leadership and continued guidance, so the films argue, enabled the Federal Republic to develop into a politically stable and economically prosperous country with freedom and rule of law. As part of this narrative of success, and in order to ensure that the sympathetic identification with Adenauer also extended to the new state, the PR films created an amalgam out of the concepts “Adenauer” on the one hand, and “Germany,” “Federal Republic,” and “Bonn” on the other.

The Social Market Economy Second, the PR films implicitly promote the Federal Republic’s economic system. Although the Federal Republic’s path towards stability and prosperity was a swift one, the beginning years were not easy. In 1954, according to CDU-commissioned Allensbach polls, every second adult in the Federal Republic still had money troubles. These ranged from entire families going hungry, to unfulfilled material wishes.48 Earlier research on the Adenauer administration’s PR strategies, such as historian Mark Spicka’s study Selling the Economic Miracle, has revealed the immense efforts to win an initially skeptical population over for the social market economy during the first half of the 1950s. Adopted from the start as the Federal Republic’s economic system, the social market economy combines the basic principles of a free market with government regulation and strong social services. It was inextricably connected throughout the 1950s with the iconic figure of Minister of Economics Ludwig Erhard (CDU), whose 1957 book Prosperity for All (Wohlstand für alle) became both a bestseller and a political campaigning slogan that the CDU printed on posters that bore Erhard’s face.49 Before 1955, at a time when the Federal Republic was not yet politically sovereign, and while the economy was only slowly developing towards the “miraculous” economic boom that characterized the second half of the 1950s, there were constant fears in the Adenauer administration that public opinion could still turn towards the planned economy favored by the SPD at that time. Throughout the 1950s, the SPD capitalized on the widespread fears of material shortages and renewed economic crises and emphasized social justice and the problems of the worker. It proved

48 “Das Soziale Klima (II) 1951–1954,” Allensbach Institut (KAS Archiv I-172035/1), 25. 49 Ludwig Erhard, Wohlstand für alle (Gütersloh: Signum Verlag, 1962); “LeMO Objekt: Plakat Wohlstand für alle,” Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, https://www.hdg.de/lemo/bestand/objekt/ plakat-wohlstand-fuer-alle-erhard-cdu.html (accessed October 28, 2016).

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to be a formidable opponent to Adenauer’s CDU during its efforts at introducing and anchoring the Capitalist system in the Federal Republic. While in 1951 only 37 percent of West Germans preferred a market economy, by 1954 public opinion turned after Adenauer’s re-election, when it was favored by 59 percent.50 Still, this was not an overwhelming majority, and consequently, the Allensbach polling institute warned the CDU that an economic downturn might obliterate the social market economy’s fragile public support at any time.51 Competition for public opinion between the economic ideologies favored by the CDU and the SPD was intense during the early 1950s. For instance, the Consortium of Democratic Circles (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Demokratischer Kreise, ADK), a PR outlet founded by Adenauer’s Federal Chancellery in 1951, produced numerous ad campaigns extolling the advantages of Erhard’s model over the SPD’s.52 At the same time, the public interest group Die Waage, sponsored by West German industry and not openly affiliated with the government, popularized the duo of the everymen Fritz and Otto, who debated the pros and cons of the social market economy in short films and print ads. Since the debate on the economic system abated considerably with the onset of the economic miracle and the concomitant, increasing sense of anti-Communism during the second half of the 1950s, the issue only plays a significant role in some very early PR films made before 1954. For example, 1951’s The First Step (Der erste Schritt), extolled the economic benefits of the Schumann Plan, while Not Without Us (Nicht ohne uns) of the same year advertised the benefits of the Marshall Plan. For the “chancellor films” analyzed in this study, which in contrast to these earlier films all feature Adenauer at the heart of their narratives, a well-developed narrative of the Federal Republic’s already established economic prowess was a constitutive part of their PR message that West Germany was “on the right course.”

West German Rearmament Third, the PR films indirectly address the issue of West Germany’s rearmament through the founding of the Bundeswehr and the integration of this new army into NATO in 1955. Mostly made in the second half of the 1950s, the PR films examined here emphasize the benefits of the

50 Allensbach Umfrage “Das Soziale Klima (II) 1951–1954” (KAS Archiv I-172035/1), 7. 51 Allensbach Umfrage “Das Soziale Klima (II) 1951–1954” (KAS Archiv I-172035/1), 22–3. 52 The ADK was founded by Otto Lenz (CDU), who served as Adenauer’s chief PR strategist and organizer in the rank of a state secretary heading the Federal Chancellery from 1951 to 1953. See chapter two for further detail.

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Federal Republic’s already existing integration into the Western defense alliance, rather than advocating for joining the alliance. This had been carried out by earlier and more topical films not focused on Adenauer at the heart of their narratives, such as the HICOG reorientation film When Freedom Called (Als die Freiheit rief, 1951).53 The Deutsche Wochenschau was part of the debate as well when in 1955, the year that the Bonn–Paris Conventions took effect, it produced The Great Misapprehension (Der große Irrtum) in cooperation with the ADK. Unlike the PR films examined here, this was an anti-communist Cold War propaganda film focused on a single political objective: to demonize the Soviet regime in belligerent tones while extolling the benefits of NATO. In contrast, the PR films examined in this book promote the Federal Republic’s membership in the Western defense alliance, visible through a confident display of the Bundeswehr during diplomatic occasions or military exercises, as one of the most significant milestones of the Federal Republic on its way towards the status of a sovereign and central West European power. The films develop this position against the backdrop of the Federal Republic’s political partnerships with the US and France. Images of the Bundeswehr, such as soldiers, military equipment, or its symbols and emblems, are used for symbolic effects in the films. This technique represents military power and a “shared burden” together with the NATO partners in the Cold War defense project, as a keystone in the Federal Republic’s newly gained sovereignty. The above mentioned foundational values all represent Adenauer’s political doctrine of Western integration in its particular political, economic, and Cold War security ramifications. After the atrocities committed during the Third Reich and the social uprooting in its wake, the Federal Republic’s road “back” into the fold of the “civilized nations” of the West54 was accomplished in a surprisingly short number of years. It was a path that (very roughly) extended from the early struggle for political sovereignty, to full membership in Western and European defense and economic networks, such as NATO and in the European Economic Community (EEC). That all of this was accomplished during Adenauer’s fourteen-year-long chancellorship was an achievement that the Adenauer administration never tired of promoting in its PR films. In conclusion, the process of explaining the Federal Republic’s alignment with the West took place against the backdrop of a West

53 “Bericht über den Einsatz der Mobilwerbung in den Regierungsbezirken Osnabrück, Oldenburg und Aurich, Land Niedersachsen, 2. bis 15. Februar 1955” (KAS Archiv I-172-048/3). 54 This concept lies at the heart of Konrad Jarausch’s study: “Recivilizing Germans.” See Jarausch, After Hitler.

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German public sphere that did not necessarily share Adenauer’s priorities: the population widely expected that Adenauer would work towards a reunification with the East, which prior to the building of the Berlin Wall was still seen as a realistic possibility. In this context, the Adenauer government needed to frequently engage in political arguments with the SPD opposition, which criticized central tenets of Adenauer’s policy of Western integration. For example, in 1959 and in diametric opposition to Adenauer’s political agenda, the SPD published a “Deutschlandplan,” which envisioned steps towards a military neutral, united Germany free of nuclear weapons, embedded in a similarly “deescalized” Central Europe, jointly safeguarded by US and the Soviet Union.55 Managing these opposing political programs, both in public perception and the Bundestag, would emerge as a central underlying political challenge to all of the films discussed in this study.

55 “Deutschland-Plan der SPD.” Der Spiegel, 16/1959, http://www.spiegel.de/ spiegel/print/d-42625064.html

Two The Deutsche Wochenschau as “Government Channel”

Introduction On September 1, 1953, five days before the Federal Republic’s second federal election that provided Adenauer with a second term in office, a letter reached Adenauer’s Head of the Federal Chancellery, Otto Lenz. It was written by Bernhard Ueberschär, a concerned CDU voter. Überschär warned Lenz that “the CDU only has its passivity to blame if it loses the next election. There is still time to correct the existing shortcomings!”1 Ueberschär then argues: “The installation of a truly effective party organization needs to start right now. This is the only way that the ideas of the party can be conveyed to the voter,” and later continues “the utmost goal has to be: to convince the voter that our federal chancellor’s policy is right!”2 Überschär’s letter reflects widespread concerns within Adenauer’s CDU prior to the second federal election. During the first legislative period as federal chancellor from 1949 to 1953, when the Federal Republic’s final political path and institutions were far from settled, Adenauer experienced a persistent popularity problem. Even shortly before the election, polling data commissioned by the CDU still told of widespread skepticism towards Adenauer’s policies.3 Mark Spicka

1

2

3

“Nur ihrer Passivität wird es die CDU zu verdanken haben, wenn sie die nächste Wahl verliert. Noch ist Zeit, die bestehenden Mängel zu beheben!” Letter by Ueberschär to Lenz (Federal Chancellery), March 6, 1953 (KAS Archiv, I-172-047/3). “Es muß sofort mit dem Aufbau einer wirklich guten Parteiorganisation begonnen werden. Nur so kann das Gedankengut der Partei an den Wähler herangetragen werden. [. . .] Oberstes Ziel muß sein: Den Wähler von der Richtigkeit der Politik unseres Bundeskanzlers zu überzeugen!” Letter by Ueberschär to Lenz (Federal Chancellery), March 6, 1953 (KAS Archiv, I-172-047/3). “Die Meinung über Bonn, 1951–1955,” Allensbach Institut (KAS Archiv I-172035/1), 30.

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elaborates that between 1950 and early 1953, the CDU’s strongest opposition party the SPD “continually held an advantage over the CDU/CSU of between 15 and 3 percentage points, with an average lead of about 9 points” in the opinion polls.4 The SPD also steadily gained ground on the CDU/CSU 5 in West German state elections, to the effect that the party posed an actual threat in the upcoming federal election.6 There is a clear correlation between the Federal Press Office’s interest in the Deutsche Wochenschau company as an outlet for filmic PR and the CDU’s public opinion crisis.7 Faced with such numbers, Adenauer felt an acute need to explain himself and his agenda directly to the population. Already in 1951, Adenauer demanded from his Head of Chancellery Otto Lenz an “effective propaganda” when the latter was hired.8 A short explanation of how “propaganda” was used within the Press Office is necessary here. Politicians during the Adenauer period did not really distinguish the term from other forms of persuasive, political communication: “Politicians of all creeds used the term ‘propaganda’ – today laden with the stigma of political non-correctness – for the most part indiscriminately for all forms of advertising, publicity, PR, and propaganda.”9 Among other contemporaries, Adenauer also used the term “in an absolutely positive sense.”10 However, the Press Office increasingly turned to US-style PR principles during the 1950s,11 and during the concomitant change in the social climate regarding the use of the term, the notion gradually disappeared from internal Press Office correspondence. This chapter examines how the Federal Press Office was able to leverage the Deutsche Wochenschau’s unique position of a film production company controlled by the state, and its connection to other governmental PR networks to address the CDU’s public opinion crisis. The analysis of the institutional relationship between the Press Office

4 Spicka, Selling the Economic Miracle, 145. 5 The Christlich Soziale Union (CSU) is the Bavarian sister party of the CDU, the latter of which does not stand for election in Bavaria. The parties compete together in federal elections, hence they are commonly referred to as “CDU/ CSU.” 6 Spicka, Selling the Economic Miracle, 145–6. 7 1951 saw the first PR film, The First Step (Der erste Schritt) on the Schumanndeclaration, while 1953, shortly before the election, the Press Office released A Man Advocates for his People. 8 Otto Lenz, Im Zentrum der Macht: Das Tagebuch von Staatssekretar Lenz, 1951–1953 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1989), XIII. 9 Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien, 51. 10 Daniel, “Die Politik der Propaganda,” 73. 11 Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien, 22.

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and the Deutsche Wochenschau reveals how the Adenauer government was able to develop this configuration into a distinct PR advantage over the SPD opposition. The chapter argues that the acute need to explain political intentions perceived especially before the 1953 election, and the concomitant decisions on political PR that were taken in the Federal Chancellery under Lenz’s leadership continued to inform the Adenauer administration’s PR activities from then on. In spite of his short tenure at the Chancellery from 1951 to 1953, Lenz’s legacy consequently played a central role in developing the PR films as a genre. In order to advance this argument, this chapter reconstructs the institutional history of the PR films’ production based on the correspondence on the PR films’ planning and production between the Deutsche Wochenschau and the Federal Press Office. First, it establishes the cooperation between the Press Office and the newsreel company on the PR films as an outcome of the Adenauer administrations’ search for a “government channel” in the West German democratic media landscape. It then reviews the central decisions regarding political PR within the Federal Chancellery and their influence on the PR films. The analysis reveals that the PR films are based on a philosophy of political PR developed during Adenauer’s first chancellorship by his most influential strategist in matters of political PR work, the Head of the Federal Chancellery Otto Lenz.12 The chapter’s main argument is that the PR films are the outcomes of a tightly organized and stringently overseen production process that placed the Press Office as the films’ “buyer” in a position in which it controlled every single aspect of the films’ production. The chapter ends with an overview on the typical production path of a PR film. An understanding of the PR films’ production history is essential for the analysis of the films’ content in the following chapters as statements resulting from PR decisions that reacted dynamically to the political situation of the day.

The Need to Exert an Influence: Adenauer’s Views on the West German Media Landscape At the beginning of the Adenauer years, newsreels played a significant role in lending text-based news a visual dimension: “[they] delivered

12 The position of Head of Federal Chancellery was (and still is) a powerful position within the federal administration, comparable to one of federal minister, even though that person only held the rank of a state secretary. The heads of federal chancellery also exerted profound influence on the Federal Press Office., which they de facto controlled. An indication of their importance is that under Adenauer, the heads of the Chancellery took part in cabinet meetings among the ministers.

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moving images, which complemented the information from daily newspapers and radio broadcasting.”13 Since the material effects of the West German economic miracle only slowly trickled down to the working population, televisions were not ubiquitous, and throughout the 1950s the new medium was still far from being the dominant news resource for West Germans. This was largely the domain of the newspapers, some of which during the 1950s and 1960s still appeared in multiple editions during the day, and as extra editions during particularly newsworthy events, such as state visits or disasters. Besides newspapers, radio played a central role in the dissemination of news and political commentary. During the occupation period (1945–9), West Germans had installed a decentralized, public broadcasting network, subject to public oversight and democratic administration, under the Western Allies’ tutelage. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, this broadcasting system repeatedly had to fend off the Adenauer administration’s efforts at taking control. Among other events, the Adenauer administration tried to install a government-controlled “Deutschland-Fernsehen” TV network in 1960, an initiative that emanated directly from the Federal Chancellery and ultimately was struck down by a decision of the Federal Constitutional Court in 1961. The “Spiegel affair” of 1962, in which the news magazine Der Spiegel was accused of treason by Minister of Defense Franz Josef Strauss (CSU) since it allegedly had disclosed information vital to the interest of national security, was another milestone in this regard. Its outcome temporarily stalled the career of the accuser, focused the energies of what was eventually to become the student movement, and rehabilitated the editor of Der Spiegel, Rudolf Augstein. It therefore ultimately strengthened the position of critical journalism in West Germany and added to the growing realization in Bonn that the government could not directly influence a press that had increasingly become confident about its rights and constitutional protection. Particularly these events during the early 1960s made it clear to the Adenauer administration that the West German media system would fiercely defend itself from government influence. During that period, without any concrete perspective to establish a reliable influence on the media, the Adenauer administration increasingly turned to the newsreel industry in order to create and transmit a desired image of the government to the population. Accordingly, the years 1960–3 mark the apex of the Deutsche Wochenschau’s production of governmental PR films. While these developments culminated in the early 1960s, they are of course part of a larger, government-led PR effort through the

13 Lehnert, Wochenschau und Tagesschau, 11.

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state-controlled newsreel system that started earlier, with the Deutsche Wochenschau’s founding as “Neue Deutsche Wochenschau” in 1949. The following pages illustrate how through the newsreel, which remained under federal control between 1949 and 1963, the Adenauer administration established and maintained a “government channel” in the West German media system. This favorable coverage was mainly created in close collaboration between two parties. The films’ main initiator and buyer on part of the Adenauer administration was the Federal Press Office, which answered directly to the Federal Chancellery. The Press Office generated ideas for new PR film projects or at times adopted them from other parties, such as journalists offering film synopses. In the case of all the PR films analyzed in this study, the Press Office then produced these projects through the Deutsche Wochenschau.14 During the production process, the latter was bound by the contract to create the film exactly to the Press Office’s rigorous specifications. The Deutsche Wochenschau was the ideal partner for such projects for three main reasons. First, it was initially owned by the federation and later controlled through a blocking minority in company stock. Second, the Press Office maintained a robust presence on the company’s advisory board (Verwaltungsrat) and board of directors (Aufsichtsrat, Beirat), with the former being concerned with the content aspects, and the latter with legal and economic concerns.15 Last, due to the weekly production of its newsreel Neue Deutsche Wochenschau, and since 1952 the Welt im Bild newsreel,16 the Deutsche Wochenschau had at its fingertips a comprehensive archive on German and world politics. This made footage of Bundestag debates, on leading German politicians, and most importantly on Adenauer, as well as film material from state visits conducted and hosted, readily available for the production of PR films. This aspect kept down the PR films’ production expenses as it avoided costly archival fees, and it significantly sped up the production process. The business relationship between the Deutsche Wochenschau and the federal government was responsible for a celebratory reporting on Adenauer and a praising of his policies. Regarding the Deutsche Wochenschau’s uncritical stance, and alluding to the company’s relationship to the federation, former Editor in Chief Manfred Purzer

14 The Press Office occasionally chose to work with other, private companies on certain projects, like the ones mentioned in the introduction. 15 “Schnellbrief” (Finance Ministry) to the Federal Minister of the Interior, November 6, 1950 (BArchiv B106/959). 16 In 1956, the Welt im Bild was taken over by the UFA and henceforth released as UFA-Wochenschau.

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compares the newsreel company to the Goethe Instituts, governmentsponsored cultural institutions that represent and distribute a government-sanctioned view of German culture across the world: “obviously, an owner has an influence on his company, to be sure, a very general influence.”17 In his desire to reach out to the public to explain governmental policies Adenauer took an active part and played a leading role in designing, orchestrating, and actively engaging in governmental PR initiatives. As the first Medienkanzler (“media chancellor”),18 Adenauer’s role in the implementation of the basic structures for governmental PR in the Federal Republic cannot be underestimated: Adenauer himself gave the impulse for the introduction of a functioning governmental PR. As the first federal chancellor, he was able to use to his advantage a freedom of design that none of his successors in office ever had at their disposal. The concept of a “chancellor democracy” [“Kanzlerdemokratie”] – and, in conjunction with that, the rituals, methods, and institutions for the chancellor’s self-expression – developed during the Federal Republic’s founding years – were to no small degree based situationally on daily experience and praxis.19 When Adenauer took office on September 15, 1949, he had already witnessed three political systems, all of which had failed under conditions of devastating crises in 1918, 1933, and 1945. Starting out in public office during the Kaiserreich (1871–1918), Adenauer had experienced the steadily intensifying split between the old monarchial establishment and the rapidly advancing sociopolitical transformation that Germany underwent during the period of late nineteenth-century industrialization and urbanization. These developments eventually began to overtake the undemocratic political structures of Germany and ultimately rendered them obsolete during the revolutionary events of 1918/9. Adenauer had then as President of the Prussian State Council seen first-hand the irreconcilable, vastly heterogeneous sociopolitical dynamic of the Weimar Republic (1919–33). Ousted from his job as Mayor General of Cologne by the Nazis in 1933, Adenauer had

17 “Dass natürlich ein Besitzer auf ein Unternehmen einen Einfluss hat, einen ganz allgemeinen Einfluss, das ist ja klar.” Author’s interview with former Deutsche Wochenschau Editor in Chief Manfred Purzer, Munich, June 27, 2015. 18 Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien, 10. In the German context, the term is a tagline describing a federal chancellor who expertly uses the media for his or her political aims. 19 Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien, 49.

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subsequently spent the period of the Third Reich (1933–45) in seclusion. As the tide of the Second World War began to turn against the Germans, he had his own experience with Gestapo terror during his internment in the final weeks of the war. Throughout these different periods of German statehood, Adenauer had gained important insights into the impact of the different media systems as influences on public opinion. These included, most importantly, the Gesinnungspresse of Germany, a system that makes no pretense of objectivity and has newspapers and magazines representing party political views. After the more diverse publication policies under the Kaiserreich and the Weimar Republic, the media had been brought into lockstep by Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda ministry during the Third Reich. Adenauer had witnessed personally the efficiency and efficacy of National Socialist propaganda, and he had also observed the postwar Allied re-education efforts to eradicate Nazism among the West German population during the occupation period (1945–9). The sum of these experiences created an acute political awareness in Adenauer, a conviction that public opinion was crucial to securing and maintaining political power. Moreover, he had witnessed that the means to access public opinion lay in a firm control of the media. As media historian Christina von Hodenberg summarizes: It is well documented that Konrad Adenauer practiced an authoritarian media policy and rarely supported major objections to political intervention into the realm of journalism. As a tactician of power, and as a realist oriented towards partisan thinking, he understood the public media sphere as an instrument of his politics and as the interface between government and its citizens.20 Regarding his relationship to journalists, von Hodenberg sees Adenauer in a tradition that had extended from German Chancellors Bismarck (1871–90) to Stresemann (1923).21 According to von Hodenberg, Adenauer was “extraordinarily present in radio, television, and print media,” and “generally expected wind in the sails from the media for government work.” However, the chancellor perceived and often bemoaned a “hostility” in the media. In order to counteract the perceived bias, Hodenberg elaborates, “Adenauer succeeded at winning over journalists from the bourgeois spectrum. The best example for this are the famous ‘Tea Talks.’ ”22 These informal irregular meetings with

20 Von Hodenberg, Konsens und Krise, 153. 21 Von Hodenberg, Konsens und Krise, 158. 22 Von Hodenberg, Konsens und Krise, 154–5.

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hand-picked journalists provided Adenauer with the opportunity to informally explain his political aims to a crowd of positively predisposed or actively acquiescent journalists. These talks, von Hodenberg continues, were styled as “background information” for the press. Direct note-taking was not permitted, however, and whoever did not respect the agreements or wrote critically about Adenauer was excluded from further meetings.23 Uta Schwarz draws the following conclusion: “The media policies of the Adenauer administrations were determined by a systematic effort to control the press, broadcasting, film, and television through political agency.”24

The Founding of the Federal Press Office It was this mindset that from the beginning of his chancellorship led Adenauer to found the Federal Press Office. With the creation of this agency, Adenauer laid the most important cornerstone for the Federal Republic’s system of media relations, an agency that has, in more or less unchanged organizational structure, continued to serve all subsequent chancellors and their administrations up until today. The agency was to act as an interface between the government and the public, especially with regard to print and visual media. It was founded on October 12, 1949, a mere month after Adenauer’s took office, by his direct order.25 As it grew rapidly in power, staff, and budget, the agency was directly tailored to Adenauer’s needs,26 and overseen directly by him and his Federal Chancellery. With a staff that grew rapidly from 176 to 424 between 1950 and 1960,27 and a steady personnel growth in the following years of Adenauer’s chancellorship, the Press Office was larger than most ministries, in fact more than twice the size of the overseeing agency, the Federal Chancellery.28 Its main task was to organize media relations for the government and to relay information about the work of the government and all its ministries to the media. While the Federal Press Office was most visible in this latter function, the agency also directed the flow of media information back to Adenauer, who received daily news briefings on world events through the so-called “chancellor folder” (“Kanzlermappe”). This was a folder with clippings from national and international newspapers that was prepared for the chancellor every morning. Historian Horst Walker identifies three distinct functions for the Press Office, which he names

23 24 25 26 27 28

Von Hodenberg, Konsens und Krise, 154–5 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 83. Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien, 52. Walker, Das Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 22. Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien, 53. Von Hodenberg, Konsens und Krise, 159.

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“PR-operative,” and “receptive” respectively, and he sees a third task in “coordinating” the PR efforts between the Federal Press Office’s departments and the government ministries.29 Installed to fulfill a government function that Adenauer considered absolutely crucial, the Federal Press Office was a branch of the Federal Chancellery until 1958, when it “was placed under direct control of the head of government [Adenauer],”30 which further hints at the agency’s importance within the Adenauer administration. As a steadily growing government agency (its staffing rose further to 702 employees by 1980),31 its organizational development was “far from straight lined” after its founding.32 The number of its departments varied between five (until 1963), six (after 1963), four (since 1977),33 and three (in 2017). The PR films were overseen by the Film Division (Filmreferat) of department V. The Head of the Film Division (Referent für Filmfragen) throughout the Adenauer years was Kurt Betz. Betz eventually held the rank of a Head of Section (Ministerialdirigent), a rank directly under the one of State Secretary (Staatssekretär) held by the Head of the Press Offices. Betz was the key decision-maker for the PR films in the Press Office throughout the Adenauer years and is therefore of singular importance for this study. His interactions with the Deutsche Wochenschau as reflected in the archival data form the bulk of the material used for the analyses of individual films in the following chapters. Lars Rosumek argues that “with the Federal Press Office, Adenauer created for himself a governmental service agency for political PR that became ‘one of the chancellor’s major instruments of power.’”34 Together with its work that adopted the latest innovations such as opinion polling, the authority reflects a shrewdly forward-thinking and highly innovative approach to media relations in contrast to both the contemporary political opposition (SPD) and the democratic Weimar past. The Adenauer government’s approach towards the media paid careful attention to incorporating distinct rhetoric and communicative registers in order to appeal to different audiences and expand its PR potential. The Press Office had studied and fully embraced the concepts of modern political PR as they were practiced in the US. Adenauer’s aides had traveled to the United States to study their American counterparts’

29 Walker, Das Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 83. 30 Stefan Beucke, Jochen Meiring, and Maximilian Russ, “Konrad Adenauer,” in Medienkanzler: Politische Kommunikation in der Kanzlerdemokratie, ed. Thomas Birker (Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, 2015), 51. 31 Walker, Das Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 84–8. 32 Walker, Das Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 89. 33 Walker, Das Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 89. 34 Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien, 52–3.

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methods in order to both adopt and adapt them.35 Considering Adenauer’s still prevalent image as a conservative elder statesman, it seems almost ironic that the “strikingly modern PR, which was implemented by Adenauer and his aides during the 1950s and 60s has been forgotten,” as Rosumek argues.36 Also, and equally ironic, this modern outlook on PR stands in contrast to Adenauer’s rather conservative notions about journalism and his repeated attempts to curb and control the democratic media landscape that quickly developed in the Federal Republic in spite of these efforts.37 Even if is often reported that Adenauer had envisioned “a ‘democratic Goebbels’ as government spokesperson,”38 the Press Office was very different from Goebbels’ Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda). Describing his position, Otto Lenz, Head of the Federal Chancellery from 1951 to 1953, stated that Adenauer envisioned a spokesperson who would initiate “ ‘an intensification of press and propaganda’ in accord with the aims of the government,”39 but through very different means than Goebbels’s infamous propaganda ministry. In Rosumek’s words, Goebbels’ ministry was “not a center for information, but a center of control. The various media were monopolized as instruments of state propaganda, information was not offered, but authoritatively enforced.”40 The Press Office, on the other hand, was to represent the government’s voice to ensure it was heard in the democratic media landscape. As a government organization, the Press Office tended to tone down openly propagandistic statements in its official communications. In the case of the PR films, it focused instead on subtler approaches that projected a desired image of the government without overtly attacking the opposition.41 Thus, even films like A Man Advocates for his People of 1953 which reported on Adenauer’s first trip as chancellor to the US,

35 Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien, 22. 36 Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien, 50. 37 See for a detailed description of the beginnings of the West German media system: Von Hodenberg, Konsens und Krise, 145–58. 38 Hanns Jürgen Küsters, “Konrad Adenauer, die Presse, der Rundfunk und das Fernsehen,” in Konrad Adenauer Und Die Presse, ed. Karl-Günther von Hase (Bonn: Bouvier, 1988), 24. Qtd. in Schwarz, Wochenschau, 83. See also: von Hodenberg, Konsens und Krise, 154. 39 Qtd. by von Hodenberg, Konsens und Krise, 154. 40 Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien, 51. 41 As discussed in the introduction, such overt attacks were largely impossible, as the SPD, the biggest opposition party, was represented (albeit in smaller numbers and with less influence) and participated in Deutsche Wochenschau’s decisions about information dissemination.

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and which was explicitly produced for the election campaign of that year, had to abstain from negative campaigning. The Press Office’s operational system within the hierarchy of the German government remains largely unchanged. As a federal agency, it is under direct control of the Federal Chancellor and the Federal Chancellery. The Head of the Press Office unifies two positions: director of the agency and chief government spokesperson. As state secretaries with de facto ministerial functions who regularly joined the cabinet meetings, the Heads of the Press Office had direct access to the governmental decision-making process. The agency’s longest-standing director, Felix von Eckardt, shaped the agency’s reputation as a highly effective PR machine in the day-to-day practice of politics. Apart from a brief hiatus between 1955 and 1956, von Eckardt, a journalist and former scriptwriter for the Nazi film industry, headed the agency for nearly ten years, from 1952 to 1962. According to Horst Walker, the PR that emanated from the Federal Press Office under von Eckardt contributed to the establishing of “a second identity, a second complex of power” for Adenauer, and “thereby [. . .] mobilize[d] the ‘chancellor effect.’ ”42 Von Eckardt skillfully orchestrated Adenauer’s depiction and image in the media. He traveled with the chancellor during state visits and often arranged “photo ops” and camera positions. His interventions resulted in an especially positive reporting on Adenauer in the media that reinforced his image as a highly respected statesman among the politicians of the West. After resigning from the chancellorship in 1963, Adenauer explicitly acknowledged von Eckardt’s crucial impact on the depiction of his work in the media in a letter written in 1966: “You always have been particularly adept at explaining the federal government’s politics to the public, especially in enlightening other countries about our intentions and political wishes.”43 The vast majority of the PR films discussed here were produced under von Eckardt’s leadership, and many profited in direct ways from his keen sense for PR opportunities. The depiction of Adenauer’s reception in the US in 1953 in A Man Advocates for his People is an apt example of von Eckardt’s experience in “scripting” the depiction of political events for the camera. According to a report by Der Spiegel, von Eckardt had traveled to the US prior to Adenauer’s departure in order

42 Walker, Das Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 30. 43 “Sie haben es immer in ausgezeichneter Weise verstanden, die Politik der Bundesregierung der Öffentlichkeit verständlich zu machen und vor allem auch das Ausland über unsere Absichten und unser politisches Wollen aufzuklären.” Letter by Adenauer to von Eckardt (FPO), December 8, 1966 (KAS Archiv online). http://www.kas.de/upload/ACDP/eckardt/eckardt_adenauer.pdf (accessed March 21, 2017).

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to predispose the press positively. The Press Office had also sought out the services of an American PR company for assistance in its PR work during the visit.44 The resulting film’s complex and symbolically charged imagery and commentary conveying American respect for Adenauer (and, by extension for West Germany) left an enormous impact on the contemporary audience and helped the CDU/CSU win the 1953 federal election.45 The Press Office was far from unchallenged during the Adenauer years. The CDU’s opposition parties, the SPD and Free Democratic Party (FDP) claimed that its activities obstructed equality of opportunity between the parties. Horst Walker notes that “without any doubt, the Federal Press Office is the most contested government organization in the history of the Federal Republic. There was doubt not only in the realm of politics and the media, but ultimately in the Federal Constitutional Court, about whether or not the nature and the scope of its activities violated constitutional principles.”46 In spite of these doubts, repeated attempts by the SPD to enforce more parliamentary control over the Press Office remained unsuccessful during the Adenauer years.47 Public criticism focused mainly on the fact that the agency’s financing was shrouded in secrecy. Large portions of its activity were financed through the infamous budgetary title 300, a secret fund for the Federal Chancellery and at the Press Office’s disposal that bypassed parliamentary control. This fund, also opaquely referred to as “Reptilienfonds,”48 was earmarked as “at the Federal Chancellor’s disposal for the financing of PR measures.”49 Title 300 was strongly criticized by the SPD as “the

44 “Adenauer-Reise: Zwei Schüsse zuviel,” Der Spiegel, 16/1953, http://www. spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-25656164.html 45 See Schröder, “Wahlkampfbilder,” 140–1, 144. 46 Walker, Das Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 22. 47 Only in 1977 did the Federal Constitutional Court reach a leading decision in which it set limits to the federal government’s PR activities. This decision clearly forbade that the government directly conducted election campaign advertising. Michael Brüggemann, Europäische Öffentlichkeit durch Öffentlichkeitsarbeit? Die Informationspolitik der Europäischen Kommission (Springer-Verlag, 2008), 78. 48 The name refers to Otto von Bismarck’s controversial practice to pay journalists for favorable coverage in imperial Prussia from a secret fund. The money in the fund had been illegally acquired from King George V of Hannover and Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm of Kurhesse in 1866 as a result of the “German Brother’s War.” In a speech in front of the Prussian House of Representatives in 1869, Bismarck called these rulers “evil reptiles.” Later on, the public ironically began to refer to the journalists receiving Bismarck’s secret payoffs as “reptiles.” “30. Januar 2009 - Vor 140 Jahren: Bismarck prägt den Begriff Reptilienfonds,” Westdeutscher Rundfunk, https://www1.wdr.de/stichtag/stichtag4406.html (accessed May 4, 2018). 49 Walker, Das Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 32.

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Federal Press Office’s indirect party financing.”50 Funds in the title rose from an initial DM 450,000 in 1950 to a massive DM 13 million by 1959 and were only subject to supervision by the President of the Federal Court of Auditors (Bundesrechnungshof).51 Budgetary title 300 was explicitly understood by Head of the Press Office von Eckardt as devoted to “the explanation of the federal government’s policy.”52 Another budgetary title in connection with the PR films was title 315 that was introduced in 1957 explicitly for PR work outside of the Federal Republic. In contrast to title 300, title 315 was subject to parliamentary control through the Bundestag Budget Committee (Haushaltsausschuss) from the start. Funding for title 315 grew steadily; for example, funding was extended from DM 55 million in 1966 to DM 61.2 million in 1967.53 The PR films were financed from both funds, depending on their topic and planned deployment. All throughout the Adenauer years, the Press Office’s “entire national PR efforts continued to be financed from the secret funds.”54 Only in 1967 were the title 300 funds finally subjected to parliamentary control, also because the SPD complained about the disadvantage it saw itself in due to this practice.55 Apart from the opaque financing, Adenauer’s personnel politics contributed significantly to the Press Office’s status as loyal auxiliary to Adenauer’s political intentions. According to von Hodenberg, the agency was staffed primarily with CDU/CSU members or adherents, many of which entertained views on democracy that were hard to unite with today’s understanding of the term. This reflects important tenets of the concept of “chancellor democracy” (“Kanzlerdemokratie”) practiced by Adenauer.56 This understanding of the Federal Republic’s democratic process was oriented around the idea of promoting consensus for the policies of a strong politician, a consensus that could be enforced if necessary. Von Hodenberg reports that for example, for the Head of the Chancellery Otto Lenz, prohibitions on government attempts to influence the press were “liberalist.” Lenz instead “insisted that the state should actively work towards a ‘uniform opinion

50 Walker, Das Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 34. 51 Walker, Das Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 32. 52 “’Wir dienen mit dem Titel 300’, gestand Felix von Eckardt, ‘der Verständlichmachung der Politik der Bundesregierung, nicht der Bundesrepublik.’” “Presseamt: Pulver in der Kiste,” Der Spiegel, 7/1961, http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d43159668.html 53 “Reklame statt Politik,” Die Zeit, October 21, 1966, http://www.zeit.de/ 1966/43/reklame-statt-politik 54 Walker, Das Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 35. 55 Walker, Das Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 34. 56 Von Hodenberg, Konsens und Krise, 159–60.

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formation,’ because ‘the wavering of public opinion in politics’ would be ‘detrimental.’ ”57 In von Hodenberg’s analysis, apparently the leading figures of the Federal Press Office were adherents of the idea of a public sphere that was as unified as possible, one which was steered according to the interest of governmental politics, in which the élites called the shots, in which the representation of interests was contained from the top, and in which the politically mature citizen was a fiction.58 According to von Hodenberg, this mindset reflects a “politics of steered media” (Politik der Mediensteuerung) out of a sense of crisis.59 This outlook on the public sphere reflects an awareness of political instability that needed continuous stabilization through explanation and taking influence. Von Hodenberg argues that the governmental contacts with journalists and the media, as well as the efforts to take influence on the population, and the judicial discourse on media legislation in West Germany were determined by an “awareness of the instability of the new partial state, which was perceived as unstable in terms of foreign policy, economy, and social structure, and which was seen as threatened by Eastern infiltration and through a lack in loyalty on part of the own population.”60 In both its role as government agency and in its organizational design, the Federal Press Office was clearly planned to address such concerns. Consequently, this study conceives of the “awareness of the instability of the new partial state” as a determining factor in the production of all the PR films the Press Office created with the Deutsche Wochenschau. As the following chapters demonstrate, all of the PR films strive to obtain the agency of interpretation (Deutungshoheit) regarding world and national events, and about the corresponding policies developed within the Adenauer administration. To be sure, the Press Office’s PR work went far beyond these films and had many more facets.61 What should not come as a surprise is that the PR work emanating from the agency displays a constant partiality towards the government coalitions led by Adenauer. This laudatory reporting was of course only possible through a clear CDU/CSU bias 57 58 59 60 61

Von Hodenberg, Konsens und Krise, 159–60. Von Hodenberg, Konsens und Krise, 160. Von Hodenberg, Konsens und Krise, 145. Von Hodenberg, Konsens und Krise, 145. Among other publications, the Press Office regularly published the Bulletin of the Federal Press Office (Bulletin des Presse- und Informationsamtes der Bundesregierung) to provide a government view of political events in the form of print media during the Adenauer years. These other activities cannot be discussed here and do not serve my argument.

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in the Press Office’s staff, and through a firm oversight of the agency through the Federal Chancellery and the federal chancellor himself, who both dictated to the Press Office the stance of governmental PR during key political decisions. As many of these decisions were initially unpopular, such as German rearmament, they were often in need of explanations that had to meet the expectations of the West German public. In order to take the population’s pulse on political issues, the Press Office relied extensively on opinion polling through the closely associated Allensbach Institute. That the need for explanation of Adenauer’s policies continued after the 1953 election is aptly illustrated by an Allensbach poll from 1955, which revealed that only 50 percent were “on the whole” unanimously supportive of Adenauer’s policies.62 Many West German voters were still undecided about whether they should support the SPD and throw their support behind a policy vastly different from Adenauer’s. Staunch CDU supporters, on the other hand, were frustrated at what they perceived as the party’s poor public image and its failure at effectively presenting their political ambitions to the general population. In 1956, a letter to the Federal Chancellery by a concerned citizen described the CDU’s public image as grossly misrepresented: To the ‘man on the street,’ is seems as if the opposition and Adenauer’s opponents called the shots, and as if the government merely did what the others pushed it towards doing. However, the CDU could specifically point out its excellent accomplishments since 1949. But who really talks about the economic successes, [. . .] who highlights the stability of the currency, [. . .] who mentions the workers’ high standard of living? [. . .] In my opinion, it is imperative that the CDU take the initiative here. Propaganda should be kicked into high gear. [. . .] The party as such needs to step into the public view and reiterate again and again through agendas and programs what has been achieved.63

62 “Die Meinung über Bonn, 1951–1955,” Allensbach Institut (KAS Archiv I-172035/1), 30. 63 “Dem ‘kleinen Mann auf der Straße’ kommt es so vor, als ob die Opposition und Gegner Adenauers bei allem die treibende Kraft wären und die Regierung eben notgedrungen tut, zu was sie von den anderen gedrängt wird. Demgegenüber könnte jedoch gerade die CDU auf eine stolze Bilanz seit 1949 hinweisen. Aber wer spricht schon von wirtschaftlichen Erfolgen, [. . .] wer hebt die Stabilität der Währung hervor, [. . .] wer weist auf den hohen Lebensstandard des Arbeiters hin? [. . .] Da sollte nach meiner Ansicht die CDU unbedingt eingreifen. Die Propaganda müßte auf Hochtouren gebracht werden. [. . .] Die Partei als solche muß mit Programmen und Programmpunkten immer wieder hervortreten und das Erreichte immer und immer wieder hervorheben.” Letter by Epple to Bausch (Federal Chancellery), February 28, 1956 (KAS I-172-047/3).

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Such letters cast a telling light on the expectations of the electorate during the Adenauer period, and demands to strengthen the CDU’s public image were widespread among its supporters during the 1950s. In this light, the PR films need to be seen as nuanced PR tools that directly address the above concerns. Otto Lenz, the Head of the Federal Chancellery from 1951–3 and Adenauer’s main PR strategist during his first term as chancellor, was instrumental in laying the groundwork that enabled the PR films to answer such challenges.

The “Büro Otto Lenz” and its Concept of Political PR This study conceives of the Deutsche Wochenschau-produced PR films in their unique form as a direct result of Otto Lenz’s ideas on political PR, and his work at implementing these in Adenauer’s Federal Chancellery. During Lenz’s tenure as Head of the Federal Chancellery, while the Adenauer administration’s PR infrastructure was still in the process of being implemented and firmed out, Adenauer tasked Lenz, in the latter’s own words, with “an intensification of press and propaganda.”64 Adenauer and Lenz worked together during the years between 1951 and 1953; however, these few years of collaboration decisively shaped the way in which the Federal Press Office would henceforth influence public opinion.65 As Head of the Federal Chancellery, Lenz devised a comprehensive PR strategy for the government and founded a number of ostensibly private organizations to rally public opinion around Adenauer’s policies. Many of Lenz’s central ideas found their way directly into the PR films. For instance, in 1952, Lenz argued to Adenauer that an emotional rendering of his person and a highlighting of his personality were key during election campaigning: “We have to be clear that if one wants to really reach the broad masses, we need to lead this campaign from a strong emotional standpoint. You as a person are of paramount importance in this process.”66 This aspect emerged as a constitutive element of the PR films’ narratives that eventually earned them

64 “ ’Der wichtigste Punkt sei ihm die Intensivierung der Presse und Propaganda.’ ” Lenz qtd. in Hoffmann, “Vorsicht und keine Indiskretionen,” 60. 65 After his resignation from office in 1953, Lenz, who held political ambitions of his own, was elected into the Bundestag during the federal election of the same year. Until his unexpected death in 1957, he continued to coordinate political PR for the CDU. 66 “Wir müssen uns [. . .] darüber klar sein, dass man die ganze Wahlkampagne, wenn man auf die breite Masse wirklich einen Einfluss ausüben will, unter starken emotionalen Gesichtspunkten führen müsste. Dabei kommt ihrer Person ganz besondere Bedeutung zu.” Letter by Lenz (Federal Chancellery) to Adenauer, August 4, 1952 (KAS I-172-058/2).

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the nickname “chancellor films.” Lenz also from early on relied on technically advanced methods of PR work when he pushed for the implementation of mobile screening trucks to project films in public places during election campaigns, “so that we can enter the race with really modern propaganda methods.”67 Apart from organizing and streamlining the general PR initiatives, Lenz also theorized about government PR work in a more comprehensive manner. In a top-secret strategy paper of September 1, 1953, shortly before the federal election on September 6, Lenz sketched out a new structure for the government’s communication organizations.68 This paper influenced the way in which the federal government organized its PR work in crucial ways. In it, Lenz perceived the government’s effectiveness in political PR to be hamstrung by organizational problems arising out of a three-tiered PR network consisting of the Press Office, the Federal Central Agency for Domestic Service (Bundeszentrale für Heimatdienst), and the Ministry for All-German Issues (Ministerium für Gesamtdeutsche Fragen). In Lenz’s view, this was an inefficient and confusing situation with blurred boundaries and undecided responsibilities. Apart from that, Lenz criticized the Press Office’s PR budget, DM 5 million at the time of his writing in 1953, as “totally inadequate” and pointed to the fact that the Reemtsma tobacco company had recently spent DM 1 million alone to introduce a single cigarette line to the market.69 Apart from these criticisms, Lenz in his strategy paper advocated for the adaptation of a US-style “system of ‘public relations’ ” for the federal government. Lenz argued that “people believe over there that as in the case of a good product, politics likewise is in need of a psychologically apt promotion.”70 He explicitly highlighted the importance of the

67 “Was die Methode der Wahlpropaganda anbelangt, so haben wir dafür vorgesorgt, dass wir mit wirklich modernen Propaganda-Methoden antreten können.” Letter by Lenz (Federal Chancellery) to Adenauer, August 4, 1952 (KAS I-172-058/2). 68 “Streng geheim! Exposé über das Informationswesen,” Memorandum by Otto Lenz (Federal Chancellery), September 1, 1953 (KAS I-172-058/2). 69 “Der dem Presse- und Informationsamt für die eigentlichen Aufklärungszwecke zur Verfügung stehende Betrag von 5 Millionen DM ist völlig unzureichend.” “Streng geheim! Exposé über das Informationswesen,” Memorandum by Otto Lenz (Federal Chancellery), September 1, 1953 (KAS I-172-058/2). 70 “Man hat dort das System der ‘public relations,’ also der Pflege der Beziehung zur Öffentlichkeit in den letzten Jahren ausserordentlich entwickelt. [. . .] Man ist dort der Auffassung, dass ebenso wie für eine gute Ware auch für die Politik ständig eine psychologisch richtige Werbung betrieben werden muss.” “Streng geheim! Exposé über das Informationswesen,” Memorandum by Otto Lenz (Federal Chancellery), September 1, 1953 (KAS I-172-058/2).

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“spoken word” for PR efforts in West Germany and argued that “information brochures” alone would be insufficient.71 At the same time, Lenz expressed an understanding that such activities might become problematic for a democratic government. Since the Press Office as an official government agency was “naturally limited in its reach and possibilities,” Lenz argued that “it was therefore necessary, to hand over a part of the enlightenment work to private organizations, which have the possibility to act more intensively and more decisively.”72 Lenz also suggested a new information ministry in the strategy paper; a highly controversial idea. This new super-ministry was to unify all the competencies of the three aforementioned, separate government authorities involved with governmental PR work.73 However, Lenz’s plan remained highly unpopular in the media and also seemed to have raised objections within the CDU/CSU.74 In a letter to Lenz of September 30, after critical media coverage of the leaked plans, Adenauer distanced himself from the idea.75

71 “Es wird insbesondere notwendig sein, politisches Verständnis und politisches Interesse bei allen grossen Verbänden und Organisationen zu erwecken; das kann nicht allein auf dem Wege durch Informationsschriften geschehen, es hat sich immer wieder gezeigt, dass dem gesprochenem Wort und der sachlichen Auseinandersetzung für die Meinungsbildung die allergrößte Bedeutung zukommt. “Streng geheim! Exposé über das Informationswesen,” Memorandum by Otto Lenz (Federal Chancellery), September 1, 1953 (KAS I-172-058/2). 72 “Als rein behördliche Stelle ist das Presse- und Informationsamt naturgemäss in seinem Wirkungsbereich beschränkt. Es war deshalb erforderlich, einen Teil der Aufklärungsarbeit auf private Organisationen zu verlagern, die die Möglichkeit haben, intensiver und eindeutiger aufzutreten.” “Streng geheim! Exposé über das Informationswesen,” Memorandum by Otto Lenz (Federal Chancellery), September 1, 1953 (KAS I-172-058/2). 73 „Wenn die Mittel dieser 3 Stellen, die sich jetzt mit Information und Aufklärungsarbeit befassen, zusammengefasst würden, wäre natürlich ein viel einheitlicherer und wirkungsvollerer Einsatz möglich.” “Streng geheim! Exposé über das Informationswesen,” Memorandum by Otto Lenz (Federal Chancellery), September 1, 1953 (KAS I-172-058/2). 74 Highly critical articles appeared in the news magazine Der Spiegel and the weekly Die Zeit, which characterized Lenz’ plans as authoritarian and compared them to Goebbels’ Third Reich propaganda ministry. Already on August 26, 1953, before Lenz submitted his strategy paper, Der Spiegel reported that if reelected, Adenauer’s State Secretaries Globke and Lenz would establish a “new West German authoritarian state.” “Kanzler-Pläne: Das Über-Ministerium,” Der Spiegel, 35/1953,” http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-25657410.html This intervention by the newly-established West German press is an early example of critical journalism that foresaw and warned of the potential dangers of state-organized “information,” shortly after the downfall of the Third Reich. 75 Letter by Adenauer to Lenz (Federal Chancellery), September 30, 1953 (KAS I-172-058/2).

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Nevertheless, Adenauer still adopted Lenz’s suggestion to establish private channels for governmental PR, but with one important deviation from Lenz’s plans. Lenz had explicitly discouraged the idea of mainly relying on private channels, as he had seen these only as an augmentation of state-run PR work in his strategy paper.76 Adenauer, on the other hand, wanted to replace the suggested information ministry entirely with privately organized PR work that was to be manufactured and distributed under the “cloak of privacy.”77 While the information ministry plan ultimately did not find support, Lenz’s strategy paper was still extremely influential in that it formulated essential, guiding principles for governmental PR work: It is an increasingly recognized understanding that in a democracy, an effective information apparatus is especially important. If we do not succeed in convincing a large majority of the population that our government’s policies are in the new nation’s best interests, it will be exceptionally difficult to continue to obtain popular consent. This possibility does not justify introducing the biased style of propaganda characteristic of totalitarian states. On the contrary, it is vital to convince citizens that our policies are valid by using factual, objective reporting that enables an informed public grasp of existing challenges.78 This description applies to the PR films’ overall stance. To be sure, as government statements, the films did in no way engage in a critical

76 “Streng geheim! Exposé über das Informationswesen,” Memorandum by Otto Lenz (Federal Chancellery), September 1, 1953 (KAS I-172-058/2). 77 [. . .] es erscheint mir richtiger, diese ganzen Arbeiten unter einem privaten Mantel zusammenzufassen.” Letter by Adenauer to Lenz (Federal Chancellery), September 30, 1953 (KAS I-172-058/2). 78 “Dass einem guten Informationswesen in einer Demokratie besondere Bedeutung zukommt, ist eine Erkenntnis, die sich immer mehr durchsetzt. Wenn es nicht gelingt, die Öffentlichkeit auf breitester Basis von der Richtigkeit er Regierungspolitik zu überzeugen, wird es ausserordentlich schwer sein, auf Dauer die erforderliche Unterstützung für die Regierung zu erhalten. Damit soll nicht gesagt sein, dass eine Propaganda im Stile der totalitären Staaten gemacht werden soll. Es ist vielmehr erforderlich, durch sachliche und objektive Darstellung den Staatsbürger von der Richtigkeit der Politik zu überzeugen und bei ihm auch für die bestehenden Schwierigkeiten das erforderliche Verständnis zu wecken.” “Streng geheim! Exposé über das Informationswesen,” Memorandum by Otto Lenz (Federal Chancellery), September 1, 1953 (KAS I-172-058/2).

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discussion of government politics. They remained uncritical and celebrated Adenauer as the most experienced and therefore most trustworthy politician. At the same time, the films were still based on objective facts, such as state visits, diplomatic events, and political outcomes such as treaties and agreements. In that sense, from a governmental perspective, they sought to explain the motivations and successes of Adenauer’s policies in the constructive fashion that Lenz’s paper stipulated. As the most important and lasting innovation implemented while working for Adenauer, Lenz founded a number of PR outlets that came in the guise of independent, private organizations. Central among these companies was the Consortium of Democratic Circles (ADK). The ADK was founded on Lenz’s initiative in 1951 and became central in the Adenauer administration’s and the CDU’s PR efforts. According to Rosumek, “it was Adenauer’s largest PR organization outside of the Federal Press Office.”79 In 1953, the ADK organized more than 2,500 events during the 1953 federal election campaign.80 The Federal Chancellery directly controlled the ADK and financed it through funds which bypassed parliamentary control, particularly the “Reptilienfonds,” budget title 300.81 A secret report on the ADK’s activities of November 1956 lists as the organization’s purpose: Political public relations work to promote within the population an interest in civic matters and political events, to foster in them the desire for political participation and responsibility, in order to thus anchor democracy within the people’s consciousness and to provide a stable foundation for the constitutional bodies.82

79 Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien, 55. 80 Volker Hetterich, Von Adenauer zu Schröder — Der Kampf um Stimmen: Eine Längsschnittanalyse der Wahlkampagnen von CDU und SPD bei den Bundestagswahlen 1949 bis 1998 (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2013), 140. 81 Michael Kunczik, “Geschichte der staatlichen Öffentlichkeitsarbeit in Deutschland: Regierungs-PR von gestern bis heute,” in Handbuch Regierungs-PR: Öffentlichkeitsarbeit von Bundesregierungen und deren Beratern, eds. Miriam Melanie Köhler and Christian H. Schuster (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2006), 44. 82 “Politische public relations Arbeit, um in der Bevölkerung das Interesse in staatsbürgerlicher Hinsicht und für das politische Geschehen zu wecken, sie zur politischen Mitarbeit und Verantwortung heranzuziehen, um damit die Demokratie im Volksbewußtsein zu verankern und den bestehenden verfassungsmäßigen Einrichtungen eine tragfähige Grundlage zu geben.” “Arbeitsgemeinschaft Demokratischer Kreise Bericht (Geheim),” November 30, 1956. (KAS I-172-051/1).

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By 1953, Lenz had augmented the ADK by a total of seven other PR organizations, which supplemented the ADK’s task and in their entirety provided the Press Office with a comprehensive interface to the public through which to transmit pro-government PR. All of these companies had the same business address, listed as Meckenheimer Straße 56 in Bonn.83 The German Correspondence (Deutsche Korrespondenz) was founded “[. . .] to supply German newspapers abroad with authentic material on the work and accomplishments of the Federal Republic.”84 The Society Free Europe (Gesellschaft freies Europa) mainly promoted the Schumann Plan of 1950. The League of Free Democrats (Bund aktiver Demokraten) mainly promoted the European Defense Community, and in general conducted PR for Adenauer’s policy of a German reunification “on the Federal government’s terms” through Western integration.85 The Consortium for Civic Education (Arbeitsgemeinschaft staatsbürgerliche Erziehung) published the German Letters for Teachers (Deutsche Lehrerbriefe), which it regularly distributed for free to German secondary school teachers by mail. The publishing house Hermann E.Thiel was used for the distribution of “educational pamphlets.”86 Lastly, the Deutsche Reportagefilm (German Reporting Film) and the Mobilwerbung GmbH (Mobile Advertising) were two companies founded by Lenz that most directly had to do with the PR films. An internal document on the companies founded by Lenz lists as the Deutsche Reportagefilm’s task: The Deutsche Reportagefilm G.m.b.H. was founded in spring of 1952 in order to produce political documentary films that were supposed to depict the federal government’s successes in foreign and domestic policy. Apart from films suited as supporting movies for the feature presentations in the movie theaters, 16mm films were made for non-commercial distribution, namely for party and organizational events, as well as for film showings by the Mobilwerbung GmbH. The DEUTSCHE REPORTAGEFILM

83 “Büro Lenz,” n.d. (KAS I-172-046/4). 84 “In erster Linie gegründet, um den deutschsprachigen Zeitungen im Ausland authentisches Material über Tätigkeit und Leistung der Deutschen Bundesrepublik zu vermittlen.” “Büro Lenz,” n.d. (KAS I-172-046/4). 85 The German original is “Wiedervereinigung im Sinne der Bundesregierung.” “Büro Lenz,” n.d. (KAS I-172-046/4). 86 The German original is “Politische Aufklärungsschriften.” “Büro Lenz,” n.d. (KAS I-172-046/4).

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From its beginnings onward, the Deutsche Reportagefilm was closely aligned with the Deutsche Wochenschau. Initially, the company produced several films under its own name, the first example being 1951’s The First Step, a film that promoted the Schumann Plan and the Franco-German reconciliation after the Second World War. Another Deutsche Reportagefilm release, The Way Out (Der Weg nach draussen) of 1953, is listed in the internal document as providing an overview of “German foreign policy from the beginnings of the Federal Republic until Federal Chancellor Adenauer’s USA trip.” Both films were used to support the CDU during the 1953 federal election through regular, daily screenings that took place from May 1953 onward (The First Step), and in July and August (The Way Out), respectively.88 The majority of these films that listed the Deutsche Reportagefilm as producer were actually made by using the Deutsche Wochenschau’s personnel and resources, and by 1955, the Deutsche Reportagefilm moniker largely disappeared from the production credits. However, the company remained a crucial part of the PR films’ production process, as it carried out the copying work for the Deutsche Wochenschau PR films throughout the Adenauer years. Once the Deutsche Wochenschau finished a PR film and had produced a master copy, the Deutsche Reportagefilm produced the requested 16mm and 35mm copies and distributed them. The second PR company founded by Lenz that was closely associated with the PR films was Mobilwerbung. Developed out of the Third Reich’s Filmtonwagen employed by the Wehrmacht’s Propagandakompanien, the Mobilwerbung trucks were fitted with modern mobile film screening technology to bring the PR films to rural

87 “Die Deutsche Reportagefilm G.m.b.H.’ wurde im Frühjahr 1952 ins Leben gerufen, um politische Dokumentarfilme herzustellen, die die Erfolge der Bundesregierung in der Aussen- und Innenpolitik darstellen sollten. Neben Filmen, die als Vorfilme für die Spielfilmeprogramme der Lichtspieltheater geeignet waren, wurden Schmalfilme produziert, die für den nichtgewerblichen Verleih, also für Veranstaltungen von Parteien und Organisationen, sowie für Filmvorführungen der Mobilwerbung GmbH. bestimmt waren. Dieser nichtgewerbliche Filmverleih der vor allem in der Wahlzeit grosse Bedeutung hatte, wurde von der DEUTSCHEN REPORTAGEFILM G.m.b.H. besonders gefördert.” “Büro Lenz,” n.d. (KAS I-172-046/4). 88 “Eine Darstellung der deutschen Aussenpolitik vom Beginn der Bundesrepublik bis zur Amerikareise des Bundeskanzlers Dr. Adenauer.” “Büro Lenz,” n.d. (KAS I-172-046/4).

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communities that did not have access to the movie theater during the CDU’s election campaigning. According to the Federal Chancellery, “the goal of these campaigns was to foster an understanding of the need for European integration among the population, and, at the same time, to exploit on propagandistic terms the successes of four years of governmental policies.”89 In conjunction with the Deutsche Reportagefilm and the Deutsche Wochenschau, the Mobilwerbung trucks were highly efficient, mobile PR-units and would eventually form the backbone of the Adenauer administration’s efforts at promoting general policy milestones and the CDU’s election campaigning. Like the ADK, Mobilwerbung had no direct organizational overlap with the CDU,90 but was nevertheless directed from the Federal Chancellery through Lenz, who reported on the company directly to Adenauer. The federal government deliberately obscured its connection to these propaganda outlets.91 On the other hand, critical journalism, as practiced by Der Spiegel and Die Zeit, soon put a spotlight on these matters, especially regarding the controversial information ministry plans of summer 1953. Ultimately, however, with the controversial ministry off the table, the PR organizations that Lenz founded for Adenauer withstood larger, critical scrutiny by the public throughout the Adenauer period and proved to be highly valuable for the CDU. As historian Johannes Hoffmann comments, “the efforts of the Federal Press Office and by the PR apparatus created by Lenz played a decisive part in convincing broad circles of the population of the domestic and foreign policy successes of the Adenauer-led federal government.”92 The analyses in the following chapters make clear that the Deutsche Wochenschau was firmly integrated into this governmental PR arsenal and closely interfaced with some of Lenz’s PR companies. In the planning, production, and distribution of the PR films, the Press Office followed principles developed during Otto Lenz’ tenure as Head of the Federal Chancellery and chief architect of Adenauer’s political PR apparatus. The following sections on the history of the Deutsche Wochenschau’s founding, its organizational structure, and its mode of production in conjunction with the Press Office, make clear that with regard to the PR films, the company has to be seen as an integral part of the Adenauer administration’s PR apparatus.

89 “Ziel dieser Aktionen war es, bei der Bevölkerung Verständnis für die Notwendigkeit der europäischen Integration zu wecken und zugleich die Erfolge einer vierjährigen Regierungspolitik propagandistisch auszuwerten.” “Nachlass Otto Lenz,” (KAS I-172-046/4). 90 Hetterich, Von Adenauer zu Schröder, 140. 91 Spicka, Selling the Economic Miracle, 159. 92 Hoffmann, “Vorsicht und keine Indiskretionen!”, 361.

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The Founding of the Deutsche Wochenschau through the Federal Government The history of the Deutsche Wochenschau’s founding as “Neue Deutsche Wochenschau,” with the “Neue” dropped in 1955 to return to the name of the Third Reich propaganda vehicle, has been precisely researched by Uta Schwarz, Sigrun Lehnert, Joachim Paschen, and Knuth Hickethier,93 among others. It will not be narrated here in detail. However, a sketch of the motivations for the company’s founding as a government-controlled media outlet is important for an understanding of its relationship with the Federal Press Office and its overall position within the government PR apparatus. These circumstances also explain the PR films’ unique mode of production, as well as their characteristic visual language and narrative tone. The initiatives leading to the founding of a West German newsreel company practically coincided with Konrad Adenauer assuming the office of Federal Chancellor on September 15, 1949. In fact, “according to a variety of sources, Federal Chancellor Adenauer was personally engaged in the project during the startup phase.”94 On September 21, 1949, the Allied licensing requirement for the media ended in the Federal Republic.95 This decision removed considerable obstacles for a German newsreel initiative and for the first time provided a realistic chance for such a project to succeed. By October 6, the newly founded Federal Press Office had emerged as the spearhead of the initiative. On that day, the Press Office entered the “first official discussion regarding a new newsreel service, to which Dr. Heinrich Böx, then the agency’s deputy chief, was invited [. . .],” and Böx oversaw the planning for the newsreel.96 In September of 1949, the journalist Heinz Kuntze-Just authored a strategy paper entitled “Regarding the Question of a German Newsreel.”97 This paper sketched out the most important considerations for such an initiative. It circulated within the Press Office, and apparently was read widely in government circles.98 Kuntze-Just’s paper argued

93 See: Schwarz, Wochenschau, 73–98; Lehnert, Wochenschau und Tagesschau, 94–133; Paschen, “Die unabhängigste Wochenschau der Welt?”; Knut Hickethier, “Ein staatliches Informationsorgan? Zur Organisation der Wochenschau nach 1945,” Hamburger Hefte zur Medienkultur 6 (2007): 21–24. 94 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 79. 95 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 74. 96 Lehnert, Wochenschau und Tagesschau, 95. 97 Heinz Kutze-Just, “Zur Frage einer deutschen Wochenschau,” September 1949 (BArchiv B106/958). 98 Letter by Böx (FPO) to Lüders (Ministry of the Interior), October 16, 1949 (BArchiv B106/958).

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that “[. . .] newsreel as an institution has become so important through its development and impact that the government should give it as much attention as the press and broadcasting. Since there is no federal ministry of culture, the responsibility should remain with the cabinet.”99 Kuntze-Just further contended that “there is a special interest in the market for a German newsreel,” alluding to the fact that in 1949, the Allied newsreels predominantly presented their own perspective on German matters.100 Kuntze-Just’s insistence on the importance of newsreels for the government seems to have struck a chord within the Adenauer administration. It now fully engaged in the effort to establish a government voice among the West German newsreel landscape which up to this point had been dominated by the Allies unchallenged, due to the occupational statutes. In the fall of 1949, during the aftermath of the Allies’ withdrawal from direct involvement in the West German media, the West German newsreel landscape was undergoing profound change. There were different Allied newsreels that dominated the market: Welt im Film (World in Film) had been produced since 1945 in the Bavaria Filmstudios in Munich under the oversight of the British and the Americans, and was shown in their sectors. The Blick in die Welt (View of the World) newsreels ran in the French sector. According to Sigrun Lehnert, both were occupation newsreels maintaining a Western Allied perspective that initially focused on re-education of Germans by highlighting the German guilt in the war and the perpetration of genocide. Later during the occupation, these newsreels changed towards economic and Cold War political themes, but rarely addressed genuinely German concerns from a German perspective.101 In addition, the American, privately owned FOX-Tönende Wochenschau (FOX Sound Newsreel) re-entered the West German market in December 1949 with a commercial mix of news and entertainment. Lastly, the Der Augenzeuge (The Eyewitness) newsreel ran in the Eastern occupation zone and, from October 7, 1949 on, in the German Democratic Republic. The Augenzeuge was the product of the East German state-operated film production company Deutsche Film

99 “Die Wochenschau als Institution ist durch ihrer [sic!] Entwicklung und Bedeutung im letzten Jahrzehnt so wichtig geworden, dass die Regierung ihr soviel Beachtung schenken sollte wie der Presse und dem Rundfunk. Da es kein Bundeskultusministerium gibt, dürfte die Verantwortung beim Gesamtkabinett liegen.” Heinz Kuntze-Just, “Zur Frage einer Deutschen Wochenschau,” September 1949, 3–4 (BArchiv B106/958). 100 “Für eine deutsche Wochenschau ist auf dem Markt ein besonderes Interesse vorhanden.” Heinz Kuntze-Just, “Zur Frage einer Deutschen Wochenschau,” September 1949, 3–4 (BArchiv B106/958). 101 Lehnert, Wochenschau und Tagesschau, 94.

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Aktiengesellschaft (DEFA) and represented the official East German perspective. All of the above factors made the creation of a West German newsreel that provided a government-sanctioned perspective on interior, German–German, and international matters, pressing: the West German drive behind the founding was determined by a desire for self-representation after four years of Allied occupation. Considering the preceding pages, this desire for West German selfrepresentation obviously included influencing public opinion, but this was not explicitly expressed in the company’s founding records. Uta Schwarz argues that “[. . .] after the NS- and the Allied newsreels, and in view of the population’s political skepticism, it apparently was not possible to openly legitimize a newsreel company as an instrument of the state.”102 According to Schwarz, there nevertheless existed instead a “silent and pragmatic consensus that accompanied the company’s founding” between the CDU and the SPD opposition to using the newsreel for party propaganda. Among other things, Schwarz sees the yearly production loans that the CDU and SPD jointly approved during the company’s founding years as an indication for such a plan.103 While the SPD was thus complicit in creating the infrastructures for a government mouthpiece, contrary to its support and its ambitions for the project, it was never able to exert the amount of influence the CDU wielded over the newsreel. Apart from the 1957 PR film Shake Hands with America (Handschlag mit Amerika), which chronicles SPD leader Erich Ollenhauer’s US trip of the same year,104 the SPD’s basic support for the Deutsche Wochenschau resulted in little significant influence that translated into favorable coverage for the party. The fact that the board of directors was staffed with SPD members alongside the CDUaffiliated colleagues, did not change the company’s government and CDU bias. The CDU as the governing party was clearly at an advantage to leverage the company as government mouthpiece. Topics that readily lent themselves to PR films, such as Adenauer’s numerous state visits, simply were less frequent. Schwarz also underlines that due to the company’s complicity in building Adenauer’s screen image, the chancellor was consistently rendered more favorably in the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreels than any other politician.105 December 14, 1949 finally saw the Deutsche Wochenschau’s founding as “Neue Deutsche Wochenschau” in the form of a private enterprise.106 In order to avoid the impression that the government was involved, 102 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 82. 103 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 82. 104 “Bestandsliste Filmarchiv,” n.d. (DW Archive). 105 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 352–66. 106 Lehnert, Wochenschau und Tagesschau, 96.

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“the initiators approached the creation of the financial and organizational preconditions for the new newsreel with extreme confidentiality. Formally, the founding of the company seemed like an initiative by local businesspeople, banks, and authorities to strengthen Hamburg as a location for filmmaking.”107 Schwarz describes the founding as carried out by “straw men,” since the partners involved, namely the “local businesspeople, banks, and authorities,” were to sell their shares right after the founding. This finally happened on January 27, 1951, when the federation fully acquired the Deutsche Wochenschau.108 Ownership of the company changed again in 1959, when the Ufa-Holding took over 42 percent. Nevertheless, the federation still held a blocking minority of 26 percent in company stock, while Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank each took over 13 percent.109 Henceforth, the Deutsche Wochenschau was no longer government owned during the Adenauer years, but through the staffing of its internal governance and the blocking minority, it still remained under government control. According to former Editor in Chief Manfred Purzer, the new UFA majority in company stock did not affect the relationship with the federal government.110 Hoffmann argues that “within the federal government there was ‘an interest not to publicize the true ownership of the NDW.’”111 The discretion during the founding had at least two practical reasons. First, it was to circumvent the Allied “Lex Ufi,” which forbade West Germans a statefunded founding of a newsreel company.112 Second, the initiators apparently anticipated public scrutiny of the founding and wanted to avoid “potential criticism from the public about a new state engagement in film matters and from the competition in the film industry.”113 This plan seemed to have worked out: a 1949 article in the Spiegel, reporting on the founding concentrated instead on the continuities with the Nazi past in the involved personnel (former Third Reich Deutsche Wochenschau lead cameraman Erich Stoll), and the name that reminded of the Nazi propaganda vehicle.114

107 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 76. 108 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 76. 109 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 493. 110 Interview with former Deutsche Wochenschau Editor in Chief Manfred Purzer, Munich, June 27, 2015. 111 Hoffmann, “Vorsicht und keine Indiskretionen!”, 353. Hoffmann uses the abbreviation NDW for the company’s original name until 1955, Neue Deutsche Wochenschau. 112 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 77. 113 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 76–7. 114 The article’s unemotional tone about these continuities serves as an apt example that the extensive continuities of the West German media industry with the Third Reich propaganda industry were a well-known fact. In the face of the ubiquity of such continuities in 1949, such news rarely amounted to scandal in the early Federal Republic.

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The article did not comment on the ownership of the company, and merely reported that the company’s financing was carried out by a cooperation of banks from several West German cities.115 A board of directors (Aufsichtsrat) was constituted on January 28, 1950.116 It was “predominantly staffed with members from politics and finance of the city of Hamburg,” ranging from the director of the state bank of Hamburg, members of different Hamburg government authorities, and from the public broadcasting network NWDR.117 The board of directors’ function was defined in a letter by the Ministry of Finances as “purely concerned with the legal aspects of corporation and the exercising of supervision in economic matters.”118 The Deutsche Wochenschau also had an advisory board (Verwaltungsrat), whose function the Finance Ministry defined as “to ensure impartiality to political and foreign influences.”119 However, Lehnert points out that the advisory board’s competencies actually went further: internally, the advisory board was to ‘provide the political line’ and was to work as an ‘extended editorial board’ through criticism and suggestions. In 1951, the board was staffed with people from the media (dpa, film production, NWDR), cultural policy (German Bundestag film committee, Minister of Culture, Senator of Culture), the association of film theater owners, the [German labor union] DGB directorate, as well as the Federal Press Office.120 The advisory board was headed by an SPD politician, the Hamburg Senator for Culture, Heinrich Landahl.121 At least on a formal level, this constellation makes the PR films products of a democratically-controlled company. In principle, the Deutsche Wochenschau was administered through the same council-based structure

115 “Neue Deutsche unverfänglich,” Der Spiegel, 49/1949, http://www.spiegel.de/ spiegel/print/d-44439172.html 116 Lehnert, Wochenschau und Tagesschau, 96. 117 Lehnert, Wochenschau und Tagesschau, 96–7. 118 “Der Aufsichtsrat muss auf die rein gesellschaftsrechtliche und wirtschaftliche Aufsichtsführung beschränkt sein und darf weder bestimmend in die politische und kulturelle Linie der NDW eingreifen, noch durch wirtschaftliche Massnahmen diese Linie beeinflussen.” “Schnellbrief” (Finance Ministry) to the Federal Minister of the Interior, November 6, 1950 (BArchiv B106/959). 119 “Der Verwaltungsrat, dem die Wahrung der politisch unabhängigen und kulturellen Linie unterliegt, [. .]” “Schnellbrief” (Finance Ministry) to the Federal Minister of the Interior, November 6, 1950 (BArchiv B106/959). 120 Lehnert, Wochenschau und Tagesschau, 100. 121 Paschen, “Die unabhängiste Wochenschau der Welt?”

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that had been implemented under the Allies’ oversight for the West German broadcasting networks. At the same time, however, the Deutsche Wochenschau had a strong presence by members of the Adenauer administration on its boards, and the following analysis of the archival correspondence makes clear that with regard to the PR films, these government officials had the final say in production matters. While the staffing of the Deutsche Wochenschau’s boards cannot be exhaustively traced due to archival restrictions,122 it is evident that the Federal Press Office tightly controlled the company through a direct presence on the boards. Kurt Betz, the Federal Press Office’s Head of Film Division, and Heinrich Böx, the Deputy Head of the Press Office, joined the first board of directors.123 Archival evidence suggests that Kurt Betz also took part in several advisory board meetings concerned with the political line in 1952, at a time when the federal government had already become the company’s single owner, such as the one on March 1, 1952.124 On November 20, 1952, the Head of the Federal Press Office Felix von Eckardt joined the ranks of the board of directors,125 and he became a member of the advisory board in 1952 as well.126 There is evidence that Betz took part in most of the Deutsche Wochenschau’s board of directors meetings in 1955 and 1959.127 By 1960, von Eckardt was still a member of both the board of directors and the advisory board, with Kurt Betz regularly being invited to join the board of directors’ meetings.128 This places key Press Office officials at the heart of the company’s leadership infrastructure. Von Eckardt’s and Betz’s presence on the Deutsche Wochenschau’s boards augmented the federal government’s financial control of the company through the possibility of direct intervention during board meetings and elections. The government’s direct influence often had tangible effects for the newsreel company. As a first and most important step, the SPD’s influence on the company’s programming was severely curtailed by as early as 1952. The Adenauer administration achieved this through conspiring to have the SPD-affiliated Editor in Chief Heinz Kuntze-Just 122 There are big gaps in the files on the Deutsche Wochenschau’s institutional relationship with the Press Office, with many years missing entirely. The few instances of hard evidence are listed in the following in the text. 123 Lehnert, Wochenschau und Tagesschau, 96–7. 124 “Niederschrift über die Verwaltungsratssitzung der Neuen Deutschen Wochenschau G.m.b.H. am 1. März in Düsseldorf” (BArchiv B145/112). 125 “Gesellschafterbeschluß” by Hartmann (BMFinanzen), November 20, 1952 (BArchiv B106/959). 126 “Gesellschafterbeschluß” September 20, 1952 (BArchiv B106/959). 127 Folder “Verwaltungsrat” (DW Archive). 128 Telex by Deutsche Wochenschau (DW) to Federal Press Office (FPO), February 1, 1960 (DW Archive).

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fired. According to Joachim Paschen, Kuntze-Just’s pacifist reporting on the Korean War interfered with the planned merger with the US-produced Welt im Film, resulting in the Americans demanding Kuntze-Just’s removal.129 The Americans’ demand conveniently aligned with a dissatisfaction with Kuntze-Just’s work in the Adenauer administration, where the editor in chief “had fallen out of favor.”130 Schwarz argues that Kuntze-Just was “hardly compatible with Bonn’s intentions in the long run.”131 According to Paschen, a smear campaign was initiated by the Adenauer administration after Kuntze-Just declined to resign. It was spearheaded by Minister of the Interior Robert Lehr (CDU) and it used Kuntze-Just’s SPD-affiliation, partly fabricated evidence of his Third Reich past, and allegations of too critically reporting on government policies to finally invoke his sacking in 1952. From early 1953 on, Paschen continues, right in time for the federal election, Adenauer could count on reliable, pro-government reporting under the Deutsche Wochenschau’s director Heinz Wiers,132 who had a reputation of being a conservative-nationalist.133 The circumstances of Kuntze-Just’s firing make very clear that the democratic air of the company’s administrative infrastructure was merely a thin veneer. Paschen rightly argues that these events “make apparent what importance the medium newsreel was given” by the Adenauer administration.134 If the Deutsche Wochenschau seemed firmly under government control with regard to personal matters and the political line, the same can be said about finances: government money, and a turn to the production of government-sponsored PR film production, helped stabilize the company. During the founding period, the company received non-refundable grants from the Ministry of the Interior.135 A DM 400,000 credit from the city of Hamburg helped as well.136 In 1953, with Kuntze-Just removed, the company took over the Allied newsreel Welt im Film and henceforth produced two newsreels side by side, the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau and the Welt im Bild (formerly Welt im Film). This accounted for further economic growth: “soon, the federally-made

129 Paschen, “Vor der ‘Tagesschau’ gab es die ‘Wochenschau,’ ” 28–9. 130 Paschen, “Vor der ‘Tagesschau’ gab es die ‘Wochenschau,’ ” 29. 131 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 92. 132 Paschen, “Vor der ‘Tagesschau’ gab es die ‘Wochenschau,’ ” 29. 133 Interview with former Deutsche Wochenschau Editor in Chief Manfred Purzer, Munich, June 27, 2015. 134 Paschen, “Die unabhängigste Wochenschau der Welt?” 135 Paschen, “Die unabhängigste Wochenschau der Welt?” 136 Lehnert, Wochenschau und Tagesschau, 97–8. 137 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 87.

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products could be seen in about 3,300 movie theaters and thus in about two-thirds of all cinemas in the Federal Republic and West-Berlin.”137 Before it became an established practice during the mid-1950s, the production of PR films for governmental purposes through the Deutsche Wochenschau was widely advertised in government circles. In 1951, the Finance Ministry distributed a memorandum that reminded readers that “on part of the federation there is a considerable interest in the preferred consideration of the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau GmbH Hamburg, when making orders for the production of documentary and PR films.” The memorandum underlined that the company was owned by the federation and supported by “prominent budgetary means” through the Bundestag. The memorandum concluded: Each new order to the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau GmbH contributes to the improvement of the company’s profitability and thus reduces the contributions from the federal budget that are needed to keep production of the ongoing newsreel going. The Neue Deutsche Wochenschau GmbH is ready to take over production of documentary and PR films at any time, and to make constructive suggestions for the design of such film projects.138 The Deutsche Wochenschau began producing such “documentary and PR films” for the government in 1951. Throughout the 1950s, and 1960s, the company went on to produce a steady output of PR films for the government and also for companies like Shell Oil and Lufthansa. A list from the Deutsche Wochenschau Archive lists ninety-five such projects produced between 1950 and 1970, with the vast majority of the films made during the Adenauer period.139 PR films were especially attractive in the distribution process since they were classified as Kulturfilme, a genre that gave the theater proprietor a discount on the entertainment

138 “Aus gegebener Veranlassung wird darauf hingewiesen, daß seitens des Bundes ein erhebliches finanzielles Interesse an der bevorzugten Berücksichtigung der Neuen Deutschen Wochenschau GmbH. Hamburg, bei Vergebung von Aufträgen zur Herstellung von Dokumentar- und Werbefilmen besteht. [. . .] Jeder zusätzliche Auftrag an die Neue Deutsche Wochenschau GmbH. trägt dazu bei, die Rentabilität des Unternehmens zu verbessern, und vermindert damit die zur Aufrechterhaltung der laufenden Wochenschau notwendigen Zuschüsse aus dem Bundeshaushalt. Die Neue Deutsche Wochenschau GmbH. ist jederzeit in der Lage, die Herstellung von Dokumentar- und Werbefilmen zu übernehmen und sachdienliche Vorschläge für die Ausgestaltung derartiger Filmvorhaben zu machen.” Memorandum by Krämer (Finance Ministry), January 30, 1951 (BArchiv B106/958). 139 “Bestandsübersicht Sonderfilme (SF),” November 27, 2007 (DW Archive).

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tax.140 There can be no doubt that the PR films and the federal money that came in with their production played a crucial role in helping the Deutsche Wochenschau establish an economic foothold in the film industry. The steady rise in PR film numbers coincides with the slow decline of the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel in the 1960s, which had come under pressure due to the ascent of television with its tagesschau news format on the ARD network by the end of the 1950s. As a result, the Deutsche Wochenschau increasingly began to produce contracted films, internally referred to as “special feature films” (Sonderfilme), in order to secure revenue.141 During that time, the federal government emerged as the company’s main contractor, with the years 1960 through 1963 marking the high point of the collaboration. In 1961 alone, the company produced twenty-six special feature films for government and industry.142 In April of 1961, the Deutsche Wochenschau simultaneously worked on no less than eight different films for the Press Office. Out of that list, two films were concerned with Adenauer’s state visits, one with his eighty-fifth birthday, two of them dealt with Bonn’s image as the Federal Republic’s provisional capital, two with Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano’s travels, and one with a visit by the Federal Republic’s UNESCO Executive Council representative Heinrich von Merkatz (CDU) to East Asia.143 Considering the overall output of the PR films, it quickly becomes apparent that some of the films did not mention the Deutsche Wochenschau as producer in the films’ credits, although the films were entirely produced at the company’s studios in Hamburg with company staff, and also billed internally as Deutsche Wochenschau productions. Apart from the Deutsche Wochenschau, the PR films’ credits at times listed the Deutsche Reportagefilm, founded in 1953, and the Cinecentrum company founded in 1962, another of the government’s PR outlets, as producers or distributors. Internationes was yet another of the numerous private organizations that worked under the Press Office’s direction on foreign policy PR.144 The Press Office used this variety of production companies to enhance the films’ PR effect. Company names other than 140 Interview with Susanne Serowiecki, Archival Specialist, Deutsche Wochenschau Archive Hamburg, July 8, 2013. 141 Cf. Lehnert’s study on how the NDW fell out of favor as people turned towards the tagesschau television format: Lehnert, Wochenschau und Tagesschau. 142 “Sonderproduktionen des Jahres 1961,” October 1961 (DW Archive). 143 “Produktionsübersicht,” April 16, 1961 (DW Archive). 144 According to Johannes Hoffmann, this organization was founded in 1952 “with crucial support of the Federal Press Office,” and “took over several important functions regarding the federal government’s foreign policy PR.” Hoffmann, “Vorsicht und keine Indiskretionen!”, 274.

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Deutsche Wochenschau created the impression that the Press Office did not exclusively work with the newsreel company, and it distracted from the impression that the films’ originator, the Deutsche Wochenschau, was a government mouthpiece.145 This measure toned down the impression that the Deutsche Wochenschau PR films were government productions from beginning to end; planned, produced, and supervised by the Press Office at every step.

The PR Films’ Production Process In their quality as precisely coordinated productions with an equally exactly organized content, the PR film’s production steps were quite similar from the first to the last film. The central person in the PR film production on the side of the Federal Press Office was Kurt Betz, the Head of Film Division. Betz was practically the deciding party in all matters regarding the films’ production. As the Press Office’s main liaison with the newsreel company, he remained in charge throughout the Adenauer years and beyond. Betz had wide-ranging responsibilities and powers regarding the film projects. He handled the monetary issues, such as overseeing the calculations and providing the final approval documents that made available the allotted federal project funds to the Deutsche Wochenschau. Betz also signed the film contracts for the Press Office. He frequently traveled to Hamburg to examine the films’ rough cuts at the newsreel company’s facilities. Betz also often decided on content or artistic matters and supervised other Press Office personnel in this task. Lastly, he handled all executive level correspondence with the Deutsche Wochenschau leadership. The leading persons within the Deutsche Wochenschau were the company’s Director and former Editor in Chief Heinz Wiers and Editor in Chief Manfred Purzer, who formed a leadership tandem during the Deutsche Wochenschau’s peak in PR film production between 1960 and 1963.146 According to Uta Schwarz, Wiers ensured that the newsreel company reliably fulfilled Bonn’s wishes: “under his leadership, there was a smooth negotiation of Bonn’s wishes, the editorial and technical possibilities, and the necessities of the industry. [. . .] He thereby accommodated the Bonn PR officials’ needs for a factual and unbiased image for the newsreel and gave them the impression that they could control the newsreel.” Acting as a protector of the Deutsche Wochenschau

145 Interview with Susanne Serowiecki, Archival Specialist, Deutsche Wochenschau Archive Hamburg, July 8, 2013. 146 Wiers took over the post of Editor in Chief from the ousted Kuntze-Just in 1953 and remained in this double function until 1958. In 1958, Purzer, an editor with the Deutsche Wochenschau since 1952, took over as Editor in Chief, while Wiers remained Director.

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film archive “loyal to the government,” Wiers also diligently contacted his government supervisors when he felt that material from the company’s archive requested by documentary filmmakers involved too many “critical topics.”147 The Deutsche Wochenschau’s accommodating attitude was even more pronounced when it came to PR film production. In that case, and as the following chapters illustrate in detail, the Press Office subjected every single step of the films’ production to the closest scrutiny, predominantly in the form of frequent exchanges regarding the production progress between Wiers, Purzer, and Betz. The PR films all followed the same basic production pattern,148 which essentially consisted of the definition of the project, the signing of the contract, the actual filming, the editing, the writing and recording of the commentary, and distribution of the finished product. The definition of a particular project could take a number of forms. In some cases, the Press Office had a clearly-defined need and idea for a particular film.149 On the occasion of important state visits, the Press Office often decided to have Deutsche Wochenschau camera teams cover the event with the goal of turning the resulting material into a film.150 Often enough, after an event like a state visit, the Press Office took the decision to turn material into a PR film that had originally been shot for regular newsreels, or for further, yet undetermined use.151 In some cases, the Deutsche Wochenschau leadership even approached the Press Office with the suggestion to make a film out of material that had been filmed for the regular newsreels and/or archival purposes.152 Finally, there were also instances in which the Press Office accepted unsolicited film treatments that freelancing journalists or filmmakers had submitted.153 After researching the film’s cost based on a film synopsis or treatment, the Deutsche Wochenschau submitted a pre-calculation (Vorkalkulation) to the Press Office that detailed the breakdown of the film’s projected cost. Among the most typical expenditures were the cost for the film material, production insurance, the per diem and travel cost for the

147 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 97. 148 Due to the often highly dynamic production circumstances that conceived of the film as a reaction to (or exploitation of) a political climate, the order of these steps can in some cases differ from what is presented here. 149 Memorandum by Krüger (FPO), September 21, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4671). 150 “Genehmigungsverfügung” by Betz (FPO), June 26, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 151 Memorandum by Betz (FPO), April 10, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). 152 Letter by Purzer and Beyer (DW) to Betz (FPO), September 12, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 153 Letter by Purzer and Beyer (DW) to Betz (FPO), November 15, 1960 (DW Archive).

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camera crews, amounts for the film’s directing, commentary, titles, and narration, as well as for cutting and dubbing, and, if applicable, foreign language versions.154 Once the Press Office approved the calculation, the next step typically was to enact the formal approval for the federal funds through Betz in form of a document enacting a formal authorization directive (Genehmigungsverfügung). This document specified the project’s expected cost and source of funding, which typically stemmed from the federal budget titles 315 and 300. The funds for films on state visits in foreign countries typically came out of the title 315, which was reserved for political PR outside of Germany (this financed the PR films Two Nations Reconcile, Germany Greets Kennedy, Welcome Dr. Adenauer, among others). However, other projects, such as the filming of material during de Gaulle’s 1963 visit to Germany, which initially was slated for later use, were financed through title 300, the “Reptilienfonds.”155 Title 300 also financed the production of 16mm and 35mm copies of Two Nations Reconcile for domestic use.156 While formally enacting a particular project’s funding in its authorization directive, the Press Office always had to justify why the project went straight to the Deutsche Wochenschau without consulting any other companies within the industry. After all, to regularly give such orders to the Deutsche Wochenschau seemed to give the company an unfair advantage over its competitors.157 In the cases surveyed, however, the explanation why the Deutsche Wochenschau received the order was a mere formality. Betz simply referred to the newsreel company’s “special experience” for the assignment in a dedicated portion of the directive form: “A free allocation of the order is feasible since the Deutsche Wochenschau GmbH has special experience and capabilities in the production of documentaries on state visits.”158 This statement, quite similar in phrasing on all the formal enactments of funding, alluded to the fact that due to its newsreel work, the Deutsche Wochenschau had a large amount of experience in reporting on political issues and events. It also highlighted the company’s vast archive on political events acquired from newsreel production. Since many films 154 This is based on an exemplary pre-calculation for Welcome Dr. Adenauer. “Vorkalkulation zu dem Dokumentarfilm ‘Besuch Dr. Adenauer bei Kennedy” (BArchiv B145/1475). 155 “Genehmigungsverfügung” (FPO), June 11, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4669). 156 As in: “Genehmigungsverfügung” (FPO), August 15, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 157 This is one of the reasons why the Press Office also occasionally worked with the aforementioned private companies on PR films. 158 “Eine freihändige Vergabe des Auftrages ist möglich, da die Deutsche Wochenschau GmbH bei der Herstellung von Dokumentarfilmen über Staatsbesuche besondere Erfahrung und Kunstfertigkeit besitzt.” Genehmigungsverfügung” (FPO), May 28, 1963 (B145/4670).

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made extensive use of such materials, this was an important advantage the Deutsche Wochenschau held over its competitors. With the funding usually enacted beforehand, Betz for the Press Office and the Deutsche Wochenschau then signed a contract on the film’s production. These contracts are very similar in wording, with only few additions or changes between 1953 and 1963. Among other things, the contracts indicated the length of the film in meters, the calculated cost, and a delivery date. Most importantly, they stipulated that the Press Office had the final say in all aspects relating to the film’s production: “The Deutsche Wochenschau agrees to conceiving the script and producing the film in good understanding with the Federal Press Office.”159 A further paragraph ensured that the Press Office obtained “without exception all the rights to the entire image material, including the finished film, as it is being created.”160 In sum, the contracts make it evident that the PR films, while manufactured by Deutsche Wochenschau, were in fact Press Office productions.161 After the signing of the contract began the film’s production, a phase consisting of four stages: (1) the shooting of new material and, if needed, the assembling of archival clips; (2) the editing of the film material into a silent, rough cut; (3) the writing of the voice-over; and (4) the audio recording stage, which together with the scoring completed the film’s final cut. The task of producing raw film material for a PR film fell to the company’s cameramen. These were experienced and highly skilled professionals, many of whom had learned their skills while working for the Third Reich Die Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel and the Propagandakompanien. Several of the company’s cameramen, typically the most experienced ones, were regularly assigned to work on PR films. At the top of the PR film roster of cameramen was Wilhelm Luppa, who enjoyed an exceptional amount of access to Adenauer. Other cameramen that were often part of the production team were Horst

159 “Die Deutsche Wochenschau ist verpflichtet, das Drehbuch und die Produktion des Films im Einvernehmen mit dem Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung zu gestalten und durchzuführen.” Contract for film ‘Präsident de Gaulle in der Bundesrepublik,’ November 16, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 160 “Die Parteien sind sich darüber einig, daß sämtliche Rechte am gesamten Bildmaterial einschließlich dem fertigen Film im Zeitpunkt des Entstehens uneingeschränkt auf das Presse- und Informationsamt übergehen.” Contract on the film “Zu Gast in Bonn,” n.d. (DW Archive). 161 While the agency retained the final say in all aspects concerning the film’s final form, it heavily relied on the newsreel company’s expertise in camera, editing, and production skills. This lent the Deutsche Wochenschau a certain artistic freedom when it came to shot composition, editing, writing of the commentary, and scoring of the film. Its editors and company leadership also made artistic and content suggestions, which the Press Office frequently adopted.

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Grund, Klaus Brandes, and Erich Stoll. Grund and Stoll had both worked for the Third Reich Die Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel. Stoll had even been its head cameraman, and in this capacity had also supervised the filming of the execution of the July 20 conspirators in 1944.162 His name also appears in conjunction with the production of Fritz Hippler’s 1940 propaganda film The Eternal Jew (Der ewige Jude).163 In this regard, Stoll and his colleague Grund represent one of the most obvious continuities that connect the Deutsche Wochenschau to its Third Reich precursor of the same name in problematic ways, a phenomenon that transcends the thematic limitations of this study. At the same time, Stolls’ and Grund’s cases attest to the regularity in which Third Reich media professionals successfully transitioned into the Federal Republic’s media system. While obviously problematic, such careers in public office, jurisprudence, the media, medicine, and industry, were an integral part of the Federal Republic’s new postwar sociopolitical “normalcy” based on a pattern of forgetting and displacement that the Adenauer administration actively fostered through amnesty laws (1949 and 1954) and a “systematic policy of exoneration and integration” (Vergangenheitspolitik).164 The cameramen traveled in teams with Adenauer during state visits and frequently shot material that could then be used both for the regular Neue Deutsche Wochenschau and a PR film. The idea of the acquired material’s twofold use lay at the heart of many productions. The cameramen were also often tasked to shoot specific scenes previously planned in a PR film’s script. This was particularly important in relation to “local color” footage of a city during a state visit, sequences that provided the ostensibly “private side” of Adenauer, or scenes that could be used for transitions in the film’s editing process. The Press Office frequently intervened in the production during this stage. This included helping in the logistics of the shooting, as during the production of Visiting Bonn (1961), when Betz used government connections to the Defense Ministry to personally request a helicopter for aerial shots of the Bonn federal district.165 In other cases, as during the production of The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday (1961), Betz personally traveled to Hamburg to survey the raw material and to deliberate with Wiers on how the material could be used most effectively

162 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 89–90. 163 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 89–90. 164 Wolfgang Hardtwig, “Von der ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’ zur Erinnerungskultur,” 173–4. 165 Letter by Betz (FPO) to Oberst von Kayser (Defense Ministry), January 30, 1961 (B145/1459).

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for the film.166 In this way, the Press Office was more or less directly involved in the filming and selection of raw material. Depending on the nature of the project, apart from shooting new material, the Deutsche Wochenschau could also rely on its vast archive of newsreel material to augment the film under production. To the Press Office, this represented a crucial aspect of the company’s production capabilities for its projects, as some films’ narratives, like Visiting Bonn, were almost entirely organized around pre-existing footage of state visits in the capital. Other PR films, like 1961’s Friendship with the World (Freundschaft mit der Welt), not discussed in this study, rested entirely on pre-existing footage of Adenauer’s travels around the world that was then newly edited together for the film. Often this production stage also involved securing footage from other newsreel companies or government institutions, or international partners in the newsreel industry. The Deutsche Wochenschau was a member of the International Newsreel Association, and trading material was quite common, even across Cold War bloc boundaries: during the production of 1956’s Meeting in the Kremlin, the company obtained material on Adenauer’s 1955 state visit to Moscow from the “state-run Soviet newsreel,” as Betz referred to it.167 The Deutsche Wochenschau also obtained footage shot by the American US Information Agency during Adenauer’s state visits to the US.168 After the filming and assembling of archival footage was completed, the editing stage began. Here, the main work fell to the Deutsche Wochenschau’s film editors. Like their colleagues behind the cameras, the film editors were seasoned industry experts who played a central role in the weekly production of the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau and Welt im Bild newsreels. The film editors turned the raw and thematically unconnected material from the camera crews into a visual story that transmitted the desired PR message by using the grammar of film to evoke agreement with Adenauer and his political goals. Consequently, their work was closely scrutinized by the Press Office. Among others, Marcel Cleinow was a film editor who worked on many of the PR films and likewise managed all technical aspects of the project. Initially, a rough cut without sound was assembled. Upon completion, the rough cut was presented to the Press Office for inspection. To facilitate and speed up the negotiations, either Betz

166 Memo by Six (FPO), November 5, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4671). 167 Memo by Betz (FPO), October 10, 1955 (BArchiv B145/4628). 168 For example, during the preparations for 1955’s America Revisited, the DW was offered material by the US Information Agency. Telegram by Krekeler (Washington) to Foreign Office, October 14, 1954 (DW Archive).

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personally examined the rough cut by coming to the production facilities in Hamburg, or the editor in charge traveled to Bonn with it.169 Common to both scenarios is that it was Betz who evaluated the films’ rough cuts for the Press Office. In certain cases, other government officials, such as the Head of the Federal Chancellery Hans Globke (1953–63), were invited to weigh in on the rough cut of a PR film as well.170 These screenings regularly prompted a detailed list of the Press Office’s desired changes. The modifications, which will be discussed in detail in the following chapters, were non-negotiable and expected to be readily implemented in Hamburg. With the often-numerous demands for changes finally implemented, the Deutsche Wochenschau typically screened the film again in Bonn, now as a final cut. Often enough, after these screenings, the Deutsche Wochenschau had to accommodate further change requests.171 With the final cut established and approved by the Press Office, the Deutsche Wochenschau started work on finalizing the film’s commentary (the writing of which had usually begun during the editing stage) and on matching this text with the film’s final cut. Again, different approaches were taken to suit varying circumstances. Often, an in-house editor wrote the commentary, sometimes journalists close to the government authored a particular film’s entire script and

169 In some cases, particularly when the films predominantly consisted of archival material from other films, as in the case of Friendship with the World, the Deutsche Wochenschau simply mailed the rough cut to Bonn for evaluation (Letter by Wiers and Purzer [DW] to Betz [FPO], June 5, 1961 [DW Archive]). 170 For example, in the case of 1955’s America Revisited, Director Felix von Eckardt personally invited the Head of the Federal Chancellery Globke and Chief of Protocol von Herwarth to the rough cut’s screening, in order to “hear [. . .] wishes for the production of the final version.” (“Mir ist berichtet worden, dass die Aufnahmen in der Farbwirkung besonders gut ausgefallen sind und ich glaube daher, dass es zweckmäßig ist, zunächst die stumme Fassung zu sehen, um evtle. Wünsche für die Herstellung der endgültigen Fassung zu hören.” Letter by von Eckardt (FPO) to von Herwarth (Federal Chancellery), January 3, 1955 (BArchiv B145/52). In his capacity as Head of the Federal Chancellery, Globke was only very rarely involved in meetings about PR films. There are two documented instances of involvement during his ten-year tenure as Head of the Federal Chancellery that will briefly be mentioned in the later chapters: 1955’s twin projects America Revisited and Aside of Diplomatic Protocol, and 1962’s The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday. Apart from these marginal involvements, there is no archival evidence that Globke ever took a more active role in the production and planning of the PR films. 171 Such as: Internal memo by Noelle to Purzer, Cleinow, and Esterer (DW), June 20, 1962 (DW Archive).

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commentary,172 and the Press Office also authored the commentary through one of its own desk officers in some instances.173 The commentary draft was then submitted to the Press Office for approval. Crucial to relaying each film’s intended message, the commentaries were for obvious reasons of central importance to the Press Office. Therefore, every word was subject to intense scrutiny. The agency, through Betz personally, or through other film department officials, often undertook extensive edits or rewrites, with very detailed requests for changes. The Deutsche Wochenschau Archive in Hamburg abounds with PR film scripts left in numerous editing stages by the Press Office’s Film Division staff. In many cases, the commentary was subject to approval by not only Betz, but also the Head of the Press Office.174 In other instances, the Press Office also forwarded the text to the Federal Chancellery for examination and commentary.175 Since the Press Office often evaluated the commentary and demanded changes very close to a production deadline, especially time-sensitive exchanges took place via telex. Once the Press Office had settled on a commentary’s final version, the Deutsche Wochenschau started working on the film’s soundtrack. The PR films followed a traditional approach of spoken commentary set to classical music that had been established and perfected during the Third Reich Deutsche Wochenschau. Classical compositions by Liszt, Haydn, Händel, Dvorak, and others, dominate the PR film soundtracks. Often Gerhard Trede, the company’s in-house composer who wrote music for the regular Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel,176 created the PR films’ music as well. The earlier films featured, as a rule, very little original sound recorded on location, with the exception of speeches and applause rendered in the films. This changed in productions after 1961 that used a camera technology (Arriflex Pilotton) that allowed the cameraman to record on-site sound while filming.177 The sound track was also supplemented with canned cheering, applause, and other sound effects. The recording of the film’s commentary by one of the Deutsche Wochenschau’s professional narrators usually formed the last 172 For example, the journalist A.W. Uhlig wrote the script for 1961’s Visiting Bonn. Letter by Uhlig to Betz (FPO), March 1, 1961 (BArchiv, B145/1459). 173 Confidential memo by Betz (FPO), January 12, 1955 (BArchiv B145/52). 174 “Memo for Mr. von Eckardt,” May 22, 1953 (BArchiv B145/824). Letter by von Tiedemann to Purzer (DW), February 25, 1961 (DW Archive). 175 Letter by Selbach (Federal Chancellery) to Betz (FPO), Feburary 20, 1961 (BArchiv B145/1475). 176 Lehnert, Wochenschau und Tagesschau, 127. 177 “Film- und Fernsehgeschichte im Spiegel der Kameras,” Film und Fernsehmuseum Hamburg, http://www.filmmuseum-hamburg.de/fernsehen/ fernsehtechnik.html (accessed May 17, 2018).

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production stage. Since the film’s commentary carried the heart of the PR message, this was a critical point in the production. Both the Deutsche Wochenschau and the Press Office took great care that the narrator hit the right tone. The Deutsche Wochenschau often asked Betz to be present in Hamburg for that occasion,178 or Betz traveled on his own initiative to personally supervise the commentary recordings.179 The Press Office also ordered foreign language versions of films that it perceived as having a strong international impact, among them Welcome Dr. Adenauer, A Man Advocates for his People, or Koblenzer Strasse 99–103. The production of foreign language versions generally took place after the German version of the film was complete. The films that typically received a foreign language commentary were ones that were also shown in German embassies abroad, were potentially met with interest abroad, or were presented to foreign heads of state as gifts. The most frequent foreign languages used were English and French, but the Deutsche Wochenschau also occasionally produced Spanish and Portuguese versions. Just like the German versions, the foreign language versions and their new film titles were subject to the Press Office’s approval.180 At the end of the production process stood the mixing of the soundtrack, which merged the film’s music, sound track and the commentary on one audio track. With the sound recording and mixing complete, the film was finished and ready for copying. The following note by Betz, concerning the 1955 US state visit films America Revisited and Aside of the Protocol sums up the PR films’ production method: “the technical production of both films would lie with the Deutsche Wochenschau GmbH in Hamburg. The supervision of the cut, especially the selection of the shots, the writing of the commentary, and other complexes directly connected with production, would be taken over by the [Press Office’s, JU] Film Division.”181 Next, the Deutsche Wochenschau sent the master copy of the film to the Deutsche Reportagefilm for copying and distribution. Founded as one of Otto Lenz’s PR companies, the company was located in Remagen, in close proximity to Bonn. The Deutsche Reportagefilm mostly

178 Letter by Wiers (DW) to Betz (FPO), May 22, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). 179 Letter by A.W. Uhlig to Purzer (DW), March 11, 1961 (DW Archive). 180 Telex by Purzer (DW) to Brunnbauer (FPO), June 25, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4670). 181 “Die technische Herstellung beider Filme würde bei der Neuen Deutschen Wochenschau GmbH in Hamburg liegen. Die Überwachung des Schnitts, insbesondere die Auswahl der Sujets, die Textgestaltung und andere, unmittelbar mit der Herstellung zusammenhängende Komplexe würde das Filmreferat [des FPO] übernehmen” (Confidential memo by Betz [FPO], January 12, 1955 [BArchiv B145/52]).

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produced 16mm, and occasionally 35mm copies for the Press Office. The number of a particular film’s 16mm copies varied between an initial 100 copies (The Path into the Future),182 180 copies (Two Nations Reconcile),183 and 265 copies (Welcome Dr. Adenauer).184 As a final step in the production, the Deutsche Reportagefilm distributed the film’s copies for the Federal Press Office. The majority of the films saw release through what the Federal Press Office referred to as “non-commercial” outlets, that is, they never ran commercially in movie theaters. Typical non-commercial recipients of the films were the Landesfilmdienste of the federal states, the Protestant and Catholic film outlets, and the ADK.185 Apart from these outlets, and especially during the 1950s, the CDU’s Mobilwerbung screened a number of PR films by means of its armada of mobile screening trucks during election campaigns. The Deutsche Reportagefilm also directly distributed many of the PR films, such as America Revisited, to the CDU’s regional chapters,186 where they were used directly for political PR work during party gatherings or during elections. The non-commercial screening outlets should not be underestimated with regard to the audience numbers. While records with screening numbers are missing from the archives, through the Landesfilmdienste, the PR films found a wide audience in schools, universities, and in the realm of adult education. The Mobilwerbung also added immensely to the films’ audiences. During the 1953 election campaign, the company’s screening trucks conducted 3,721 showings in front of an audience of over 1,112,594 people in all smaller and rural communities possible—all within ten weeks.187 Some films, like 1953’s A Man Advocates for his People, were shown with American support in West Berlin, where they reached a wide audience of East Germans.188 PR films were also part and parcel of the Federal Republic’s diplomacy, and many PR films were made to be shown in foreign language versions in the West German embassies abroad, such as 1962’s

182 Letter by Betz (FPO) to Dt. Reportagefilm, December 11, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 183 “Zusammenstellung über die Verteilung der Kopien Format 16mm zu dem Film: ‘Zwei Völker versöhnen sich’ (Langfassung)” (Dt. Reportagefilm), September 7, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 184 Letter by Dt. Reportagefilm to FPO, July 24, 1961 (BArchiv B145/1475). 185 This exemplary distribution stems from: “Zusammenstellung über die Verteilung der Kopien Format 16mm zu dem Film: ‘Zwei Völker versöhnen sich’ (Langfassung)” (Dt. Reportagefilm), September 7, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 186 Dt. Reportagefilm to Betz (FPO), April 22, 1955 (BArchiv B145/52). 187 Brochure “Mobilwerbung zeigt . . .,” n.d. (KAS I-172-046/4). 188 Letter by Franck (FPO) to Felguth (HICOG Berlin), July 17, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444).

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Two Nations Reconcile, which reports on Adenauer’s state visit to France of that same year. As the Federal Republic’s “filmic calling card,” the PR films and the central discourses identified in them in the following chapters, were used to convey a desired image of the Adenauer administration to foreign audiences, such as heads of state (through gifted films), governments, diplomats, or private citizens who attended the screenings at Goethe Instituts or in similar situations. While a non-commercial release was the norm, the Press Office also released a number of the PR films commercially. For example, the agency organized the screening of a shortened version of Two Nations Reconcile in West German AKI film theaters (Aktualitätenkinos) to round up public support for Charles de Gaulle’s visit to the Federal Republic.189 In another instance of a PR film’s commercial distribution, the Press Office hired the Columbia-Bavaria distribution company to organize nationwide film theater screenings of 1963’s The Federal Republic Welcomes President Kennedy.190 Typically, PR films ran commercially for two reasons: either, as in the first example, there were imminent political reasons (to create interest in a state visit). Sometimes, as in the second example, the film had the potential of commercial success due to an already existing public interest in a state visit.

Conclusion: The PR Films as “Government Channel” The analysis of the PR films’ institutional origins and production path renders them precisely conceived products of a carefully organized PR system under the federal government’s direct control. The PR films emerge as filmic realization of central stylistic and organizational tenets for political PR implemented during Otto Lenz’s groundbreaking PR activities as Head of the Federal Chancellery from 1951 to 1953. The films were produced in meticulous fashion to the Press Office’s exacting standards and demands by a newsreel company that had already proven itself a reliable government mouthpiece through its politically acquiescent Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel format. The close alignment of companies and political interest groups working for the Adenauer government under Lenz made the “in-house” manufacturing and distribution of celebratory coverage of government policies routine. At the same time, this government PR apparatus worked clandestinely. Thus, it largely obscured from the public that the Press Office was the source of the PR films. This was largely achieved through a network of companies and government sub-contractors

189 Letter by Brunnbauer (FPO) to Thiel (Dt. Reportagefilm), August 22, 1962 (BArchiv, B145/4669). 190 Memo by Purzer (DW), July 24, 1963 (DW Archive).

100 Staging West German Democracy without explicit connections to the government and by opaque funding channels. Viewed in the light of the PR films’ production path and the governmental PR rationales that they embodied, the Deutsche Wochenschau takes a central position among the PR network formed by Lenz’s clandestine companies. Its intricate connections to the Deutsche Reportagefilm, the Mobilwerbung’s position as one of the films’ main screening outlets, and the ADK’s use of PR films in its promotion of the Adenauer administration’s political objectives make the Deutsche Wochenschau an integral part of the Adenauer administration’s PR apparatus. A direct result of Adenauer’s dissatisfaction with and mistrust in the Federal Republic’s democratic media landscape, and as a consequence of a strong interest in public opinion informed by modern methods of polling in the Adenauer administration, the Deutsche Wochenschauproduced PR films at least partly fill the gap left by the state-run TV network that Adenauer so strongly desired at the beginning of the 1960s, but which he remained unable to obtain. In their concentration on the government’s successes and in their glorification of Adenauer’s person and office, the PR films need to be understood as “staatstragend” (supportive of the state), in that they quite literally explained the chancellor’s policies and defended them from criticism. At the same time, their producer, the Deutsche Wochenschau, was de facto a “government institution.”191 Operating unfettered by either the Bundestag or the opposition in case of the PR films, the company gave the Adenauer administration its “government channel” in the democratic media landscape of the Federal Republic. This insight serves as the interpretative basis for the following analyses.

191 Paschen, “Die unabhängigste Wochenschau der Welt?”

Three Stability Discourse: The US State Visit Films

Introduction The PR film on Adenauer’s first trip to the United States, 1953’s A Man Advocates for his People, closes with a detailed description of Adenauer’s reception in Bonn upon his return on April 19, 1953. Set to images of cheering Bonners lining the streets to welcome Adenauer home, the film’s commentary goes at great length to create an atmosphere of celebration and personal tribute to the chancellor: Back in Bonn! The station forecourt of the government seat on the Rhine is packed with people. Members of the cabinet, a delegation from the city, and leading personalities of the governing bodies are welcoming the chancellor. This is the gratitude towards a statesman who managed to turn his journey into a success. [. . .] This journey of the Federal Chancellor was a success for Germany. All who have traced his path know why: this man advocated for his people (29:45).1 The exuberant tone of the film’s commentary, praising Adenauer’s first US trip as a “success for Germany,” underlines two central and interconnected problem complexes about the Federal Republic’s situation in its foreign policy towards the US in 1953. First, still without political sovereignty and subjected to the supreme administrative

1

“Und wieder in Bonn! Auf dem Bahnhofsvorplatz der Regierungsstadt am Rhein stehen die Menschen dicht gedrängt. Mitglieder des Kabinetts, einer Abordnung der Stadt Bonn und führende Persönlichkeiten der Regierungsbehörden begrüßen den Kanzler. Es ist der Dank an einen Staatsmann, der seine Reise zu einem Erfolg zu machen verstand. [. . .] Diese Reise des Bundeskanzlers war ein Erfolg für Deutschland. Alle, die seinen Weg verfolgen konnten wissen darum: Dieser Mann warb für sein Volk.” A Man Advocates for his People, Deutsche Wochenschau 1953, 29:45.

101

102 Staging West German Democracy powers of the High Commission, the Federal Republic was still facing an uphill struggle when it came to the relations with its current occupier and former Second World War enemy. While mounting Cold War pressures had begun to change perceptions on both sides, Adenauer still needed to win back the Americans’ trust as a reliable long-term partner, for it was clear that he only would be able to lead the Federal Republic to political sovereignty with the US’s blessing. Second, this scene illustrates a strategy to use the ostensible trust of the Americans in Adenauer as a validation of his chancellorship. Only through Adenauer as an experienced and respected “advocator for his people,” the film suggests, can the undertaking of gaining the Americans’ trust be successful. Adenauer’s politics and his very person thus are conflated in this scene as a guarantor of stability for West Germans. This chapter traces a steady evolution of a “stability discourse” as the central message of a series of PR films on Adenauer’s trips to the US and visits by US Presidents to the Federal Republic and West Berlin between 1953 and 1963. These films argue that under Adenauer’s experienced leadership that ensures the powerful transatlantic ally’s goodwill and military protection, the Federal Republic is on a stable trajectory course of progress towards even greater political stability and economic success. The stability discourse uses the steady evolution of the political relationship to the US to celebrate Adenauer’s performance as federal chancellor. The PR films on US state visits were statements directed both at West Germans and at the American allies. Therefore, the stability discourse works in two directions: it emphasizes political reliability towards the transatlantic partner, and it argues at home that the Federal Republic’s prosperity and security hinges on the stability and predictability of Adenauer’s policies, which the films describe as successful. From the humble beginnings of 1953, to Adenauer welcoming US President Kennedy to West Germany in 1963 as a seemingly fully emancipated partner, the US state visit films progressively develop the image of the transatlantic partnership as a success story directed by Adenauer. Positing Adenauer’s political course as a direct consequence of the opposition between freely-elected democratic governments in the West and oppressive communist regimes in the East, the stability discourse defends the West German political project as an inevitable symptom of Soviet Cold War antagonism. Highlighting Adenauer’s foreign policy and economic successes against the backdrop of the escalating Cold War division, the stability discourse signals to the films’ audiences on both sides of the Atlantic that West Germany chose the right side in the confrontation and concurrent competition of political systems. The films present Adenauer’s leadership and his political achievements as the crucial preconditions for West Germany to continue its development

Stability Discourse 103 into a peaceful and economically successful country, firmly embedded into a union of friendly nations. These nations in turn demonstrate a deeply respectful trust in the West German chancellor, and by extension West Germany, in the films. On the lines of the famous 1957 campaigning slogan “no experiments,” the stability discourse suggests that any deviation from Adenauer’s political course would pose a serious risk to the still nascent West German state. This message assumed special urgency if one considers the volatile geopolitical atmosphere of the 1950s and 1960s and West Germany’s location on the fault lines of the Cold War. In its firmly pro-American stance, the stability discourse is the filmic implementation of a policy of Western integration that Adenauer had stridently pursued since the beginnings of his chancellorship. Apart from firmly integrating the Federal Republic in a framework of European economic and defense treaties, such as through the Schumann Declaration (1950) and the Bonn–Paris Conventions of 1955, Adenauer sought a close alignment with the US as a military protector and economic partner from the beginning. The chancellor was acutely aware that without the security the US provided for both the Federal Republic and West Berlin, West Germany would be defenseless in the face of a potential Eastern Bloc aggression. Cold War historian Steven Brady argues that “The Bonn regime considered this its most important international relationship.”2 Brady also reminds us that Western integration was in fact a reciprocal process, with the US equally benefiting from the alliance in crucial ways: after all, West Germany turned into an “invaluable ally” to the US during the Cold War period.3 This alliance comprised both economic and military matters. Through the Marshall Plan (1948–52), and by supporting a West German accession to NATO in 1955, the US had themselves tied the Federal Republic firmly into Western economic and defense alliances to reinforce its interests in Western Europe. Both sides perceived this alliance to be “vital to their success,” with the Federal Republic even considering it crucial for “its very survival.”4 As an indicator of the special importance attributed to the transatlantic partnership with the US in PR matters, this was by far the most prolific aspect of the Federal Press Office’s filmic PR work through the Deutsche Wochenschau. Compared to two films on Adenauer’s state visits to France and to one film on Adenauer’s only visit to the Soviet Union in 1955, the PR films on US state visits resulted in a body of seven films between 1953 and 1963. Consequently, the analysis 2 3 4

Steven Brady, Eisenhower and Adenauer: Alliance Maintenance under Pressure, 1953–1960 (Lanham, Md: Lexington Books, 2009), 4. Brady, Eisenhower and Adenauer, 4. Brady, Eisenhower and Adenauer, 4.

104 Staging West German Democracy focuses on tracing the stability discourse as a narrative not established in an individual film, but rather as a narrative evolution, extending and developing through a body of films spanning some ten years of transatlantic relations.

Humble Beginnings of a Partnership: A Man Advocates for his People (1953) The 30 min b/w film A Man Advocates for his People (Ein Mann wirbt für sein Volk) of 1953 focuses on detailed descriptions of the US’s ostensible trust in Adenauer and presents the chancellor as an elder statesman who moves effortlessly on the political scene of the Western superpower. The acclamatory tone of the film was made possible by a steady rapprochement of the two nations in the face of mounting Cold War pressures. Nevertheless, the relationship to the US took until 1953 to develop to a point that warranted a description of Adenauer as a trusted partner of the US on screen. The occasion to do so finally arose when Adenauer received the invitation to meet with US President Dwight Eisenhower and to visit several US cities in early 1953. Months before the federal election in September 1953, this invitation was also a signal by the Americans that they wanted to support Adenauer’s re-election, as “with Adenauer came a guarantee of stability and continuity in German foreign policy.”5 Historian Frank Schumacher argues on similar terms that “the invitation underlined Adenauer’s relevance for US foreign policy towards Germany,”6 and argues that the US High Commissioner James Conant admitted that the trip was “frankly aimed at supporting” Adenauer, “whose foreign policy accorded with the foreign policy of the United States.”7 With the Americans thus offering election campaigning support, during his trip from April 1 to April 19, 1953, Adenauer was received like a true guest of state in the US, and not as the chancellor of a country under an occupation statute that strictly limited his administration’s political powers. As historian Hans-Jürgen Schröder argues, Adenauer’s reception in different cities of the US during this inaugural visit was a “spectacular personal and political success for Adenauer.” The trip “above all documented Bonn’s close alignment with the USA, and it was emblematic of the young republic’s emancipation on terms of foreign policy.”8 5 6

7 8

Brady, Eisenhower and Adenauer, 25–6. Frank Schumacher, Kalter Krieg und Propaganda: Die USA, der Kampf um die Weltmeinung und die ideelle Westbindung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1945– 1955 (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2000), 252. Conant qtd. in Schumacher, Kalter Krieg und Propaganda, 252. Schröder, “Wahlkampfbilder,” 137.

Stability Discourse 105 The Press Office, reading the American signals before and during the chancellor’s trip, jumped at the chance to use the momentum created by the Eisenhower administration for Adenauer. With the agency’s steadily developing expertise in PR films,9 and with the second federal election around the corner in the fall, the Federal Press Office saw in the high-level meetings in Washington and Adenauer’s subsequent trip through the US a unique PR opportunity. While Adenauer was still abroad, the Press Office registered the “great echo” that Adenauer’s visit had found in “the international press” and in the interest of a “deepening of the effect,” suggested the making of a film on the visit.10 The Deutsche Wochenschau was already covering the trip for its regular Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel, and thus the existing footage simply had to be rearranged into a longer, dedicated film. During the film’s production, both the Press Office and the Deutsche Wochenschau tested and established many of the production procedures and narrative patterns that would come to determine all later PR films. A Man Advocates for his People can be seen in many ways as the stylistic template for all other PR films examined in this book. Considering the proximity of the election, and in order to avoid any impression that the film was election advertising emanating directly from the Adenauer government,11 the film’s production and planning took place in secrecy. All surviving documentation on the film from the Federal Press Office is marked “confidential,” or even “strictly confidential.”12 To further obscure the film’s federal origins, one of the Press Office’s newly founded PR companies, Deutsche Reportagefilm,13 was assigned to front for the film’s actual producer Deutsche Wochenschau.14

9 As discussed in the introduction, there was a shift from “topical films,” advertising particular elements of Adenauer’s policies, to films that reported on Adenauer’s travels, the chancellor’s person, and Bonn. A true “chancellor film” by its narrative design, A Man Advocates for his People is the first PR film to have undergone this shift. 10 “Die Reise des Herrn Bundeskanzlers nach den USA hat in der internationalen Presse ein so grosses Echo gefunden, dass ich zur Vertiefung der Wirkung vorschlage, für die deutschen diplomatischen Vertretungen im Auslande einen Sonderfilm von der Reise herzustellen.” Memorandum by Krüger (FPO), April 10, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). 11 Internal memo (FPO), April 10, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). 12 Such as for example: Memorandum by Krueger (FPO), April 10, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). 13 The Deutsche Reportagefilm was one of the PR outlets founded by Adenauer’s Head of the Federal Chancellery from 1951–3, Otto Lenz. See chapter two. 14 Internal memo (FPO), April 27, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444).

106 Staging West German Democracy The air of secrecy and concealment continued with the film’s financing. The Press Office made DM 50,000 available for the production. The funds stemmed from the opaque “Reptilienfonds,” federal budgetary title 300, which was not subject to parliamentary control.15 The funds were not transferred directly to the Deutsche Reportagefilm, but to an intermediary, the Society for a Free Europe in Bonn (Gesellschaft Freies Europa), another of the clandestine PR outlets founded by Adenauer’s Head of the Federal Chancellery Otto Lenz. The money was billed as a “written off contribution” (“verlorener Zuschuß”),16 meaning that the film’s production cost was billed internally as a subvention that was not to be paid back. The Press Office billed the money internally as a “one-time contribution for the support of the national flow of information.”17 Such maneuvers obscured the trail of financing and the government’s direct involvement in the film. This secrecy stands in a marked contrast to the more open practices that determined the production of later PR films. The Deutsche Wochenschau assigned its cameraman Wilhelm Luppa, who had established a friendly rapport with the chancellor that gained him the reputation of Adenauer’s favorite cameraman, to cover the visit as a “special assignment.”18 The filming in the US was orchestrated with the help of the Head of the Federal Press Office Felix von Eckardt, who traveled with the delegation.19 Everything about the trip was “precisely choreographed.”20 In order to prepare the visit, von Eckardt had even enlisted the help of a PR agency.21 Upon Adenauer’s return from the US on April 19, 1953, the Press Office took possession of about 5,000m of raw film material: 2,500m stemmed from Luppa, and 2.500m came from US contractual partners.22 At the Press Office, the Head of Film Division Kurt Betz thought that Luppa’s footage was “truly excellent and conveys a very impressive picture of the political significance which this trip had in America for Germany.”23

15 Letter by Hemmerling (FPO) to Gesellschaft Freies Europa, May 6, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). See chapter two for details on title 300. 16 Confidential memo by Dr. Mai (FPO), April 30, 1953, (BArchiv B145/1444). 17 “Einmalige Beihilfe zur Förderung des Informationswesens im Inland.” “Auszahlungsanordnung” by Betz (FPO), May 4, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). 18 “Der Spezialauftrag.” “ringpress,” n.d. (DW Archive). 19 Brady, Eisenhower and Adenauer, 26. 20 Schröder, “Wahlkampfbilder,” 137. 21 Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien, 72. 22 Internal memo (FPO), April 21, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). 23 Betz called the footage “[. . .] wirklich ausgezeichnet und vermittelt ein sehr eindrucksvolles Bild von der politischen Bedeutung, die diese Reise für Deutschland in Amerika gehabt hat” in the German original. Betz (FPO) to Mai (FPO), April 23, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444).

Stability Discourse 107 Upon this realization, the agency swiftly moved forward with the film’s production. The Deutsche Wochenschau completed the work within several weeks, since the film still was to be used in the election campaign of 1953. In order to expedite the revision process, the Press Office scheduled a screening of the film’s raw cut in Bonn on May 9, 1953, with the Deutsche Wochenschau film editor responsible for the project, Marcel Cleinow, in attendance.24 Due to its potential impact on the election, the film was declared a top priority, with Press Office Director Felix von Eckardt personally supervising the work on the commentary. Different from most of the other PR films, the commentary was written by the Press Office, and not by the Deutsche Wochenschau.25 The film was finished between June and July of 1953 and saw immediate use in CDU election campaigning.26 A Man Advocates for his People opens with a sending-off ceremony for Adenauer by an anxious crowd at Bonn/Wahn airport. The film’s commentary uses the enthusiastic well-wishes on the airfield, conveyed through Bonn politicians, cabinet members, and diplomats, to underline the precariousness of Adenauer’s diplomatic mission: to quite literally, as the title suggests, advocate for the Federal Republic in the US. Adenauer, the film insinuates, is trying to convince the Americans still occupying the Federal Republic that the new West German state is worthy of the US’s trust, protection, and, eventually even friendship. This was considered a lofty, yet vital goal that was necessary for survival in a Cold War political landscape most recently unsettled by the announcement of Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953. Throughout the film’s narrative arc, it presents the audience with a West German leader who confidently and successfully fulfills this task. Particularly in its departure and return sequences, the film juxtaposes the figure of a singular Adenauer, radiating confidence, with the crowd of journalists, cabinet members, and diplomats, who represent the chancellor’s anxious followers. While the seeing-off ceremony at the airport underlines an impression of Adenauer’s confidence, the fact that Adenauer could be seen boarding a US military aircraft reminded the audience of Adenauer’s most important political goal not yet attained: the Federal Republic’s full political sovereignty, which it would achieve only in 1955 through the Bonn–Paris Conventions. The

24 Confidential memo by Betz (FPO), May 4, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). 25 Internal memo by Krüger (FPO) for v. Eckardt (FPO), May 22, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). 26 Letter by Beyer (CDU Federal Headquarters) to Betz (FPO) of July 10, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). Beyer asks Betz for 150 copies of the film, as he sees himself “pressured” by the CDU Landesverbände and the CDU representatives to come up with “very many copies.”

108 Staging West German Democracy central theme of A Man Advocates for his People is therefore Adenauer’s task of instilling trust in the Americans that West Germany (and Adenauer) was a dependable partner in the US’s Cold War political interests, and that it deserved to take its place with equal rights among the other Western European nations. While calling attention to these urgent political themes, the film also served to dispel West German public fears that at seventy-seven years of age, Adenauer may be experienced, but too old for the job. As HansJürgen Schröder has shown, the film’s description of the trip to America on the steamer United States renders Adenauer to be in control of both the ship and, in a symbolic sense, the political process. It equally emphasizes his strong health in spite of his age: unlike others among his entourage, the film highlights that Adenauer did not succumb to seasickness and continued the preparations for the important state visit uninhibited by weather or the strains of travel.27 The symbolism of Adenauer on the commando bridge of the steamer, visually likening him to the ship’s captain (1:10), perfectly encapsulates the film’s desired image of Adenauer as a healthy, vital, “captain,” safely navigating through unsteady, Cold War waters. Upon his arrival in Washington, the film again depicts Adenauer as a representative of a country without sovereignty when it shows him emerging from an airplane bearing the insignia of the US Air Force (5:05). In symbolically embarking upon a US-sponsored trip that, the film argues, will eventually lead to stability and freedom, Adenauer is portrayed as a humble and grateful, yet enthusiastic “student” of the United States’ democratic principles. The film’s commentary reinforces this impression: “in his welcome remarks, the federal chancellor once again thanked the American people for its generous help after the lost war. ‘Take from me,’ he said, ‘the solemn declaration: the German people want freedom. The German people want the rule of law and justice for all’ ” (5:26).28 This quote introduces a crucial moment in the young Federal Republic’s history shown in the film: “the student” Adenauer meets “his teacher” President Eisenhower in the White House (6:01). The images from this visit are highly significant to the West German audience. After all, this meeting took place a mere eight years after the end of the Second World War, during which the US President had

27 Schröder, “Wahlkampfbilder,” 139. 28 “In seiner Begrüßungsansprache dankte der Kanzler dem amerikanischen Volk noch einmal für die großherzige Hilfe nach dem verlorenen Kriege. Nehmen Sie, so sagte er, von mir in diesem denkwürdigen Augenblick die feierliche Erklärung entgegen: das deutsche Volk will die Freiheit. Das deutsche Volk will Recht und Gerechtigkeit für alle Völker.” A Man Advocates for his People, 5:26.

Stability Discourse 109 served as Supreme Allied Commander in the fight against Germany. In spite of this past, the sequence on Adenauer in the White House suggests a very friendly atmosphere between the two politicians, emphasizing that Adenauer and the state he represents are now valued and respected guests of the US. In its desired effect, it recasts the US from a former enemy and occupier to close ally. This effect was not lost on Adenauer’s delegation during the visit. In his memoirs, von Eckardt highlights the enormous impression this meeting made on him by describing his amazement “that now the German chancellor was being greeted in the White House by ‘the American hero of the Second World War.’”29 At the same time, a short scene on Adenauer’s present for Eisenhower, a baroque painting tellingly entitled The Adoration of the Kings, explicitly mentioned in the commentary, symbolically emphasizes the hierarchy inherent in the chancellor paying his respects to the victorious superpower. Nevertheless, numerous “meta-shots” of filming newsreel cameramen and reporters with cameras while entering (5:49) and leaving (6:15) the White House attest to Adenauer’s status as a political figure on the world stage and to the visit’s political significance. A scene of Adenauer receiving an honorary doctorate from Georgetown University, honoring his “achievements as a champion of freedom,” stylizes the chancellor as an internationally respected statesman and highlights his political kinship to US ideals of freedom, democracy, and anti-Communism (6:44).30 The film further develops the impression of Adenauer being an “adept student” of US-style democracy in the subsequent reporting that contains several images of Adenauer visiting the iconic sites in Washington DC that symbolize American democracy. A shot of Adenauer posing on the Capitol steps signals the audience that after West Germany’s humble political beginnings, with Adenauer, it has finally arrived back on the world stage, even if the commentary admits that the visit was touristic in nature and not part of the official program (7:53). The most compelling point that the film makes about the success of Adenauer’s visit is a scene shot at the National Cemetery at Arlington, where Adenauer lays a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, while the US honor guard plays the German national anthem (9:42). The anthem, which had been banned in the US zone of occupation until

29 Von Eckart qtd. in Brady, Eisenhower and Adenauer, 50. 30 “Eine der berühmtesten Universitäten der Vereinigten Staaten, die Georgetown Universität, verleiht Bundeskanzler Dr. Adenauer in Anerkennung seiner Verdienste als Vorkämpfer für die Freiheit, und als Freund der europäischen Einigung, die Würde eines Ehrendoktors.” A Man Advocates for his People, 6:44.

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Figure 3.1 Adenauer in Arlington. A Man Advocates for his People (Ein Mann wirbt für sein Volk, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1953). German Federal Archive. 1949, features prominently in the scene’s soundtrack. Eight years after the end of the war, the honors bestowed upon Adenauer and through him on West Germans sitting in the movie theaters, must have made a strong emotional impact on the German audience. In effect, these images signaled to West Germans in the movie theaters that the hostilities with one of the Third Reich’s most powerful enemies were officially concluded, and that a new era of partnership and friendship between the two nations was now beginning. The film’s footage of Adenauer laying the wreath in effect realigns Second World War history for the film’s audience. It is commented “an honor bestowed upon the fallen of all people” (emphasis mine, 9:47).”31 This in effect levels the differences between the German Wehrmacht as the aggressor in the Second World War and the US Army as the liberating army and creates the impression of a joint community of mourning over past and overcome hostilities with the US. To be united in mourning was a highly effective way to appeal to the West German collective memory of the Second World War in terms of a narrative of 31 “Eine Ehrung, die den Gefallenen aller Völker gilt.” A Man Advocates for his People, 9:47.

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victimhood.32 This leveled the moral plane between two countries, a necessary precondition for reconciliation and West German public acceptance of the United States’ leadership role.33 To that effect, as Schröder summarizes, “Arlington symbolized the recognition of the new Germany and the rapprochement of the two nations who had fought each other in the world war.”34 The Arlington sequence suggests that the Federal Republic has finally been invited back onto world stage of politics as a trusted partner of the US. The film then returns to the White House. Over footage of a friendly meeting with President Eisenhower, the commentary concludes: “The atmosphere of mutual trust created during these days will continue into the future. The German card is back in the game, also according to the US. The person who knew to put it on the table at the right moment is Dr. Konrad Adenauer” (10:43).35 The film describes Adenauer’s time in Washington as a steady succession of successful meetings with American powerbrokers, honors, and press conferences. Throughout, Adenauer is portrayed as “the right man at the right time,” always in control of the situation, and able to convince his counterparts of the genuine character of his intentions as representative of the West German people. After describing the chancellor’s visit to the US in tones that emphasized American respect for Adenauer (and thus by extension West Germany), the film ends with Adenauer’s reception in Bonn, 32 This constellation found a reciprocation in US President Ronald Reagan’s 1985 controversial visit to the Bitburg military cemetery in West Germany, where the President, invited by Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl (CDU), laid a wreath at the cemetery’s Wall of Remembrance to commemorate the end of the Second World War in spite of the fact that servicemen of the German Waffen-SS were also interred there. At Bitburg, a similar leveling of guilt took place through Reagan’s reasoning that “many” of the interred German soldiers and SS men “however, we know from the dates on their tombstones, were only teenagers at the time,” and by calling the German “war dead” (and thereby implicitly including the SS-men interred at Bitburg) “human beings crushed by a vicious ideology.” Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at a Joint German-American Military Ceremony at Bitburg Air Base in the Federal Republic of Germany; May 5, 1985,” http:// www.vlib.us/amdocs/texts/reagan051985.html (accessed May 16, 2018). 33 See Robert G. Moeller’s discussion of the relevance of German victim status during the Federal Republic’s founding in: Robert G. Moeller, “Remembering the War in a Nation of Victims: West German Pasts in the 1950s,” in The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949–1968, ed. Hanna Schissler (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 100. 34 Schröder, “Wahlkampfbilder,” 140–1. 35 “Die Atmosphäre des Vertrauens, die in diesen Tagen geschaffen wurde, wird in die Zukunft weiterwirken. Auch nach amerikanischer Auffassung ist die deutsche Karte wieder im Spiel. Der, der sie im rechten Augenblick auf den Tisch zu legen verstand, heißt Dr. Konrad Adenauer.” A Man Advocates for his People, 10:43. Cf. Schröder’s discussion of this passage: Schröder, “Wahlkampfbilder,” 140.

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which the film renders in the tones of a triumphal procession. This completes the film’s narrative on Adenauer’s precarious diplomatic mission: Adenauer has returned to a grateful population after completing a crucial political mission. Crowds of cheering Bonners line the streets and children wave federal German flags, while Adenauer’s trademark black Mercedes (a visual “Adenauerism” used to foreshadow his presence in many PR films) is escorted by police in white parade uniforms along the Bahnhofstrasse, past the applauding crowd (29:35). As Schröder has rightly pointed out, these shots, together with ones of “the delegates from federal and local politics [. . .] signal agreement with the chancellor’s policies.”36 The commentary seeks to maximize the effect of wholehearted support for what it describes as Adenauer’s important and precarious diplomatic mission, and turns the images suggesting enthusiastic support into a personal tribute by a grateful West German “national family”: “This is the gratitude towards a statesman who managed to turn his journey into a success. [. . .] This journey of the Federal Chancellor was a success for Germany. All who have traced his path know why: this man advocated for his people” (29:45).37 Apart from establishing typical methods of production, A Man Advocates for his People’s narrative establishes the important cornerstones upon which all other films on the US state visits analyzed in this chapter are built: in visually impactful and emotionally rousing reporting, the film describes Adenauer’s painstaking work to rebuild trust in Germany, a process in which the Federal Republic claims to represent the “true Germany” over the German Democratic Republic, along the doctrine of sole representation (Alleinvertretungsanspruch).38 At the same time, the film rewrites the former enemy, the United States into a friend, guardian, and role model in terms of a civil democratic society for the German people. Lastly, by centering this narrative on an image of Adenauer as a highly respected and experienced statesman, the film makes a compelling case that only Adenauer was the right politician to do this important work to lead Germany back onto the world stage. Only with Adenauer at the helm (to use the seafaring imagery from the film’s opening), the Federal Republic steers the right course. Voting for the SPD opposition could wreck the ship. At the same time, as Steven Brady

36 Schröder, “Wahlkampfbilder,” 143. 37 “Es ist der Dank an einen Staatsmann, der seine Reise zu einem Erfolg zu machen verstand. [. . .] Diese Reise des Bundeskanzlers war ein Erfolg für Deutschland. Alle, die seinen Weg verfolgen konnten wissen darum: Dieser Mann warb für sein Volk.” A Man Advocates for his People, 29:45. 38 This was a political doctrine that highlighted that the Federal Republic alone on legal terms represented all Germans, the ones in the German Democratic Republic included.

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remarks in his description of Adenauer’s visit, the Adenauer delegation also wanted to communicate the same message to the Americans: “Americans could trust the Federal Republic, because the Bonn government was in the hands of Adenauer, whose reliability was beyond question. To no small extent, they were successful in this effort.”39 In contrast to all the other PR films examined in this book, enough documents survived in the archives to make possible a relatively precise reconstruction of its showing history. Adenauer’s CDU party was enthusiastic about the film and considered it excellent election campaigning material. The film had an estimated audience of 2–3 million.40 The CDU ordered 150 copies of the film through its federal headquarters, mentioning that both the party’s regional associations and the delegates had expressed strong interest in receiving copies. The party considered it “by far the best film of the ones presently at our disposal.”41 The CDU’s youth organization Junge Union,42 and the CDU local organizations, like the one in Duisburg,43 also ordered copies. The employers’ associations of North RhineWestphalia negotiated through a “closely associated film distributor” that a short version of the film ran in the “regular theater schedule” during August of 1953. This, the associations argued, would result in the “propagandistically extremely effective” film running in “about 500 to 600 theaters.”44 A short version of the film also circulated alongside of the Blick in die Welt newsreel in commercial film theaters starting August 14, 1953.45 It had an audience of “about 2 million” and ran in 600 theaters. The screenings were characterized as a “resounding success.”46

39 Brady, Eisenhower and Adenauer, 30. 40 Schröder, “Wahlkampfbilder,” 137–45. 41 The letter characterizes the film in the original German as “[. . .] der weitaus beste Film, von den bisher zur Verfügung stehenden.” Letter by Beyer (CDU Federal Headquarters) to Betz (FPO), July 10, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). 42 Betz (FPO) to Bayer (CDU), July 18, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). 43 Letter by Betz (FPO) to Thiel (Dt. Reportagefilm), July 15, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). 44 “Nach längeren Verhandlungen ist es uns gelungen, den Adenauer-Film ‘Ein Mann wirbt für sein Volk’ in einer Kurzfassung über einen uns nahestehenden Filmverleih in das normale Kinoprogramm für den Monat August noch zum Einsatz zu bringen. Dadurch wird es möglich, dass der propagandistisch außerordentlich wirksame Filmstreifen in ca. 500 bis 600 Kinos gezeigt wird.” Letter by Landesvereinigung der Industriellen Arbeitgeberverbände NordrheinWestfalens to Lenz (FPO), August 6, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). 45 Strictly confidential memo by Dr. Mai (FPO), August 10, 1953 (BArchiv B145/ 1444). 46 “Die Aktion in deren Verfolg der Adenauer-Film in 600 Kinos vor ca. 2 Millionen Besuchern vorgeführt worden ist, ist ein voller Erfolg gewesen.” Letter Landesvereinigung der Industriellen Arbeitgeberverbände Nordrhein-Westfalens to Lenz (FPO), August 31, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444).

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The Federal Press office also saw a great potential for the film to communicate the West German sociopolitical successes to East German citizens and refugees. A memo by the Federal Press Office argued that it was “[a] one-time opportunity [. . .] to inform the Eastern citizens and refugees along the lines of Public Relation, while they are housed in the reception centers erected on federal territory.”47 From this memo concrete plans emerged to enlist American help to screen the film in West Berlin, which until the building of the Wall in 1961 still saw a steady amount of border traffic from East Berlin. The HICOG film division agreed to show A Man Advocates for his People in border theaters in West Berlin, such as the Titania-Palast, and in the reception centers.48 A Press Office official observed: “During these occasions I witnessed the incredible participation of the Easterners and their enthusiasm during and at the end of these screenings.”49 The film also ran in the Amerika Haus, the official US cultural institute, in West Berlin in August and September of 1953 in front of almost 7,000 viewers in total. The Amerika Haus leadership reported: “[t]he 4,559 Eastern visitors were positively enthusiastic about the film, and we had strong applause after each screening; many eastern visitors even thanked us in person in moving words. It was a great success.”50 The film also ran in the US, which reflects its potential of describing the Federal Republic under Adenauer as a reliable partner in the US’s geopolitical interests, and thereby demonstrates the bi-directionality of the stability discourse. For this reason, the Press Office had even hired the US-based Roy Bernard PR agency to circulate the film in the US in an English language version. The PR agency promised to the Press Office that A Man Advocates for his People would “be widely distributed in the US.”51 47 “In Verfolg des Gedankens, HICOG Filmdienst Berlin wegen der Vorführung staatsbürgerlich aufklärender Filme anzusprechen, ist mir eingefallen, dass es m.E. eine einmalige Gelegenheit ist, die Ostbewohner und Ostflüchtlinge im Sinne der Public Relation ins Bild zu setzen, solange sie in den im Bundesgebiet eingerichteten Flüchtlingslagern untergebracht sind. Memo by Franck (FPO), July 17, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). 48 Memo by Franck (FPO), July 18, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). 49 “Bei diesen Anlässen konnte ich mich von dem ungeheuerlich grossen Zustrom der Ostbewohner und deren Begeisterung während und am Ende der Vorführungen überzeugen.” Letter by Franck (FPO) to Felguth (HICOG Berlin), July 17, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). 50 “Die 4,559 Ostbesucher waren geradezu begeistert von dem Film und nach jeder Vorführung hatten wir starken Applaus; ja, viele Ostbesucher bedankten sich noch persönlich in bewegten Worten. Es war ein grosser Erfolg!” Letter by Neusch (Amerika Haus) to the Landesgeschäftsstelle des Landesfilmdienstes für Jugend- und Volksbildung E.V., September 12, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444). 51 “Auf jeden Fall werden beide Filme weitgehend Verwendung in den USA finden.” Letter by von Lilienfeld (The Roy Bernard CO) to Betz (FPO), September 30, 1953 (BArchiv B145/1444).

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Diplomatic Routine has Arrived: America Revisited (1955) and Aside of Diplomatic Protocol (1955) While A Man Advocates for his People is narrated from the perspective of a nation still on a quest to win the US’s friendship, a set of related films of 1955, America Revisited (Wiedersehen mit Amerika) and Aside of Diplomatic Protocol (Abseits vom Protokoll), already reflect a relationship that had changed drastically for the better. Even the titles of the films, which report on Adenauer’s trip to the US from October 26 to November 3, 1954, suggest that by the year of their making, a certain normalcy had come to determine the transatlantic relationship. Adenauer had just participated in the signing of the Bonn–Paris Conventions on October 23, 1954 and could embark upon his trip to the US with confidence: the treaty, which would take effect on May 5, 1955, would finally grant the Federal Republic political sovereignty and make it a NATO member. The two color films, 20 minutes and 15 minutes in length respectively, reflect the growing confidence in the transatlantic relationship in a noticeably more relaxed tone in the commentary, and their narratives are broadened in scope by cultural topics that feature side by side with the political reporting. Just as in the case of A Man Advocates for his People, the Deutsche Wochenschau acted as the film’s producer, while the Deutsche Reportagefilm served as the direct government contractor and intermediary with the newsreel company. Again, cameraman Wilhelm Luppa accompanied Adenauer’s on the trip.52 A concrete film project about the visit was under way by mid-December of 1954, when Kurt Betz of the Federal Press Office traveled to Hamburg to inspect the material at the Deutsche Wochenschau’s offices.53 A rough cut was assembled by December 20, 1954. Deutsche Wochenschau Editor in Chief Heinz Wiers then organized a screening for Federal Press Office and Federal Chancellery officials (with Adenauer’s Head of the Federal Chancellery Hans Globke and Chief of Protocol von Herwarth attending).54 The purpose of such a high-profile meeting was to collect “suggestions” pertaining to the “writing of the commentary and the other dubbing of the film.”55

52 Memo by Betz (FPO), December 14, 1954 (BArchiv B145/52). 53 Memo by Betz (FPO), December 14, 1954 (BArchiv B145/52). 54 Memo by Betz (FPO), December 21, 1954; letter by v. Eckardt (FPO) to von Herwarth (Federal Chancellery), January 3, 1955; letter by v. Eckardt to Globke (Federal Chancellery), January 3, 1955 (BArchiv B145/52). 55 “Die stumme Fassung sei derart eindrucksvoll, dass er vorschlage, bereits diese stumme Fassung einem größeren Kreis von Personen zugänglich zu machen, um für die Textgestaltung und die sonstige Synchronisation des Films Anregungen von dieser Seite zu bekommen.” Memo by Betz (FPO), December 21, 1954 (BArchiv B145/52).

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Globke’s presence shows that after the success of A Man Advocates for his People, the PR films had won the attention of Adenauer’s most important adviser. This meeting resulted in the plan to produce two different versions of the film, one longer version for non-commercial distribution, and a shorter version for commercial screenings in theaters. Both versions were supposed to have different emphases, with the non-commercial version being organized more around Adenauer’s politics, and the commercial version emphasizing images of Adenauer “radiating human warmth.”56 The films were finished by April 12, 1955, with the longer version entitled America Revisited, and the shorter film bearing the title Aside of Diplomatic Protocol.57 The budget for both films was set at DM 85,000.58 There were plans to organize a personal screening for Adenauer in a Bonn movie theater,59 so that the chancellor could personally examine the film: the PR films had now become Chefsache (a matter for the boss). An analysis of key scenes shows that America Revisited and Aside of Diplomatic Protocol are replete with the confidence that Adenauer by now had gained the US’s trust that he “advocated” for in 1953. This explains why the films have a decidedly more relaxed tone than their precursor. By their often touristic and generally more playful tone, the films reflect a continuation of the Federal Press Office’s strategy to rewrite the US’s image as that of a friend and ally for the West German audience. Introducing its West German audience to colorful sights and sounds of the new NATO ally, the films feature longer sections of touristic images that introduce aspects of US culture, such as Washington DC’s democratic monuments, Manhattan, or Jazz music. The fact that politics was largely left out of the narrative speaks volumes about how quickly the transatlantic relationship had solidified—and with it West German self-confidence. The films create an impression of a political meeting between the US and a country that now counted as one of the superpower’s central political allies. Created after the signing of the Bonn–Paris Conventions and shortly before they would take effect, the films mobilize a significant amount of symbolism to convey West German sovereignty. While Adenauer can still be seen traveling on US airplanes, the commentary to America Revisited underlines that he was invited to use “the plane of the

56 57 58 59

Confidential memo by Betz (FPO), January 12, 1955 (BArchiv B145/52). Memo by Betz (FPO), April 12, 1955 (BArchiv B145/52). Confidential memo by Betz (FPO), January 12, 1955 (BArchiv B145/52). Memo by Betz (FPO), April 12, 1955 (BArchiv B145/52).

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Figure 3.2 The Mercedes star in Washington DC as symbol of German sovereignty and economic prowess: Aside of Diplomatic Protocol (Abseits vom Protokoll, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1955). German Federal Archive. US president” (1:10) this time.60 Upon the film’s reporting on Adenauer’s arrival in the US, there are a significant number of shots with West German national symbols, either political (flags) or economic (Mercedes star). On one occasion the commentary points out: “BlackRed-Gold and the Star-Spangled Banner on the Federal Chancellor’s car: symbols for friendship and trust” (6:15).61 A second scene involving cars that is present in both films is a driving sequence with images of Washington DC shot through the windscreen of a Mercedes, with the trademark Mercedes star clearly visible in the frame (Aside Of Diplomatic Protocol, 7:05). The iconic Mercedes star being “superimposed” upon the streets of the American capital conveys a sense of sovereignty and pride in the economic miracle, which made Mercedes limousines an important West German export article to the US in the 1950s. After all, the year of Adenauer’s visit coincided with Mercedes-Benz starting to export luxury cars to the US in the form of the 190SL and the famous 300SL

60 “Die Motoren der amerikanischen Präsidentenmaschine laufen an.” America Revisited, Deutsche Wochenschau 1955, 1:10. 61 “Schwarz-rot-gold und das Sternenbanner am Wagen des Bundeskanzlers: Symbole für Freundschaft und Vertrauen.” America Revisited, 6:15.

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“Gullwing” coupe.62 In this light, the Mercedes star also alludes to a problematic entanglement of government and industry—a long tradition in German politics reaching back to the Kaiserreich and which continues, especially regarding the automobile industry, until today. Ultimately, this scene therefore can be read equally as an instance of product placement in the interest of furthering trade in the US. While the films’ reference of cars foreshadows the Federal Republic’s impending political sovereignty and budding economic might, President Eisenhower appears more casual towards Adenauer than in 1953 as well. This change has an equally positive message for the film’s contemporary audience: the good-natured tone of the transatlantic relationship is now rendered as diplomatic routine between friends. In a short scene depicting Adenauer’s visit to the White House in America Revisited, Eisenhower is shown opening the door for Adenauer. The commentary takes up this inconsequential, friendly gesture to emphasize the sense of political partnership on terms of a casual home visit between neighbors: “The man of the house personally opens the door for his German guest. The handshake on the terrace affirms the negotiations of the two statesmen. Their shared polices are dedicated to peace and freedom” (6:37).63 On the whole, the two interrelated films present a largely touristic perspective on the US that focuses on “sights and sounds-scenes” focused on American culture and everyday life, fittingly set to Jazz music. Issues of race seem to be of special interest in this perspective. In America Revisited, the camera dwells for a full 23 seconds on a local color scene in front of the State Department—a woman buying an edition of Vogue magazine off a newspaper salesman—most likely since the people involved are black (4:36–4:59). The scene is included in Aside of Diplomatic Protocol as well. Together with the choice of Jazz music, this scene reflects curiosity towards African American life at a time when many black G.I.s were serving at US military bases in West Germany. The films’ touristic sights and sounds continue with a visual tour of the hallmark buildings of democracy in Washington DC (America Revisited 7:00–8:30), a longer montage sequence of skyscraper images (America Revisited 11:22), and neon signs from New York (Aside of

62 “Mercedes-Benz in the USA,” marsMediaSite, accessed May 16, 2018, 63 “Der Hausherr öffnet seinem deutschen Gast persönlich die Tür. Der Handschlag auf der Terrasse bekräftigt die Gespräche der beiden Staatsmänner. Ihre gemeinsame Politik dient dem Frieden und der Freiheit.” America Revisited, 6:37.

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Diplomatic Protocol 14:25). This latter sequence, scored by Jazz music in the style of George Gershwin, represents a visual homage to America by using stylistic devices pioneered during the Weimar Großstadtfilm of Walther Ruttmann’s Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927). This represents a complex reference to German admiration for America, and of long-ongoing Americanization in Germany. Contrary to the immense election campaign use and public profile of A Man Advocates for his People, little is known about the screening history of the films. The “popular” short version Aside of Diplomatic Protocol was to be distributed through the West German Columbia film distribution to commercial theaters.64 However, precise numbers concerning the film’s showing in movie theaters are missing from the archives. There is evidence that the longer version America Revisited was distributed to the CDU for “political educational work”: the Deutsche Reportagefilm distributed twenty 16mm copies directly to the CDU regional associations of Lower Saxony and Rhineland-Palatinate,65 while the CDU federal association asked for forty copies.66 Besides that, the “Adenauerfilm” project met with praise from the Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk’s Editor in Chief of the TV division Krüger, who asked the Federal Press Office for clips from the film for a TV project on Adenauer,67 and from the director of the Ecclesiastical Board for Educational and Film Work (Kirchliche Hauptstelle für Bild- und Filmarbeit). While Krüger especially praised the cutting, the latter quite clear-sightedly characterized the film as an “interesting example of political advertisement through the medium of film.”68

Diplomacy, Seemingly Eye-to-Eye: Partners in Freedom (1957) Made before the 1957 federal election, the 18 min b/w film Partners in Freedom (Partner der Freiheit) is the second film about an official visit to the US that was supposed to help win an election for Adenauer’s CDU. Little is known about the film’s production, apart from the fact that, according to established procedure, the Deutsche Wochenschau produced the film, which then was again billed as a Deutsche

64 Memo for Betz (FPO), April 12, 1955 (BArchiv B145/52). 65 The letter uses the common term for political events within the CDU that promoted party policies: “politische Bildungsarbeit.” Letter by Dt. Reportagefilm to Betz FPO, April 22, 1955 (BArchiv B145/52). 66 Confidential memo by Forschbach (FPO) to Betz (FPO), March 26, 1955 (BArchiv B145/52). 67 Letter by Krüger (NWDR) to Betz (FPO), July 20, 1955 (BArchiv B145/52). 68 “Der Film war für die Herren ein interessantes Beispiel politischer Werbung durch das Mittel des Films.” Letter by Kochs (Kirchliche Hauptstelle für Bildund Filmarbeit) to FPO, September 9, 1955 (BArchiv B145/52).

120 Staging West German Democracy Reportagefilm-production.69 Neither is there any data available about number of copies made of the film, or on screening numbers. Compared to its 1953 precursor’s title, the new title already claimed a clear diplomatic progress for 1957: leaving behind the humble beginnings of the transatlantic relationship, Adenauer, and through him the Federal Republic, had by now graduated to a “partner in freedom.”70 Regarding the steady progression of West German self-confidence in the US–German relations, Partners in Freedom represents a new milestone. The narrative strategy remained the same as in the other films on US visits: “According to the well-proven model, Adenauer presented himself as a statesman respected worldwide and especially in the US, who negotiates with leading American politicians apparently on equal terms.”71 By now an established part of the narratives of PR films on state visits, Partners in Freedom uses an introductory segment on the journey across the Atlantic. The film’s opening shows Adenauer aboard a Lufthansa Super Constellation airplane, a sign of the newfound political sovereignty, conversing with the Press Office director von Eckhardt. Shots out of the airplane’s window of the endless sky with clouds below, and the commentary emphasizing that the conversation takes place at an altitude of 6,000 meters, create a geopolitical “birds-eyeview”-setting for a discussion of the unresolved “German question,” a main election campaigning theme: Whenever international politics was in a tense phase, this man flew to the capitals of the world. The German question of unity in freedom for the entire German people remains yet unresolved. The Soviet block does not release the 17 million Germans in the Soviet occupied zone. Six days of hectic schedules lie ahead of this man, who himself tirelessly speaks for his country during crucial moments in world politics (1:15).72

69 The German Federal Archive lists the “Deutsche Wochenschau GmbH (Hamburg)” as producer and states: “Commissioned by: Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung.” https://www.filmothek.bundesarchiv. de/video/55878?q=&xf%5B0%5D=Keywords&xo%5B0%5D=EQUALS&xv%5 B0%5D=Deutschland 70 Schröder, “Wahlkampfbilder,” 146. 71 Schröder, “Wahlkampfbilder,” 145–6. 72 “Immer dann, wenn die internationale Politik in spannungsreichen Phasen war, flog dieser Mann in die Hauptstädte der Welt. Die deutsche Frage nach Einheit in Freiheit für das ganze deutsche Volk ist noch nicht gelöst. Der Sowjetblock gibt die 17 Millionen Deutschen in der sowjetisch besetzten Zone nicht frei. Sechs Tage angespannten Programms liegen vor diesem Mann, der nicht müde wird, in den entscheidenden Momenten der Weltpolitik selbst für sein Volk zu sprechen.” Partners in Freedom, Deutsche Wochenschau 1957, 1:15.

Stability Discourse 121 The emphasis on Adenauer as the outstanding figure working tirelessly for the Germans quite precisely echoes the PR thrust of A Man Advocates for his People. Partners in Freedom equally recycles the 1953 metaphor of Adenauer in the steering house of the steamer through a medium shot of the cockpit, showing Adenauer from behind in the co-pilot’s seat, suggesting the chancellor to be firmly in control (1:20). Images of Adenauer visiting Eisenhower in the casual setting of the President’s private ranch in Gettysburg, with the commentary describing this as an exceptional honor, create an impression that the two politicians are meeting on equal terms, seemingly eye-to-eye: “only a few statesmen until now were invited into this intimate atmosphere” (4:54).73 According to Schröder, “The images of the semi-private meeting radiate casual trust: The ‘rose grower from the Rhine’ is being informed about the President’s cattle-breeding.”74 The setting of trust continues with a scene of Adenauer’s reception at the White House, showing him being greeted at the door by the First Lady and Eisenhower himself, with Adenauer kissing Mrs. Eisenhower’s

Figure 3.3 Meeting in a private atmosphere of trust in Partners in Freedom (Partner der Freiheit, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1957). German Federal Archive. 73 “Nur wenige Staatsmänner weilten bisher in dieser vertrauten Atmosphäre.” Partners in Freedom, 4:54. 74 Schröder, “Wahlkampfbilder,” 146.

122 Staging West German Democracy hand. The film further expands on the atmosphere of friendly partnership in a scene set in the Oval Office, showing Eisenhower and Adenauer seated with US Foreign Secretary John Foster Dulles and his German counterpart Heinrich von Brentano, both standing behind their respective superiors, all of them engaged in eager discussion (7:55). The commentary stresses, “In a joint statement, both statesmen emphasized that the end of the unnatural and unjust separation of Germany was a main goal of both their administrations’ foreign policy” (7:51).75 It seems as if by 1957, and facing a federal election, the time was right to discuss what was perceived as the most pressing German issue in foreign and German–German policy: the question of reunification. Adenauer, the film suggests, found in the US a powerful supporter in his struggle and vision for German unification. Adenauer’s political doctrine regarding German unity stipulated that only from a strong West German position as an integral part of the Western world of democracy could the reunification “in free self-determination” (as was stated in the preamble to the Basic Law) be achieved. Viewed together, the images from Gettysburg and Washington remodel the heretofore more formal relationship into a quasi-familylike bond, in which the similarities between the countries’ respective leaders and their political consent are emphasized. This happens not only on terms of political temperament, but rather by likening and linking the two politicians even more closely as men with roughly similar hobbies and a mutual appreciation rooted in the realm of the private, instead of the political. The described trust between Adenauer and Eisenhower, the Federal Republic and the US, thus assumes a quality based not on political negotiation, but on shared similarities of character that are rendered innate. Adenauer (and thus by extension West Germany) becomes “family” to Eisenhower (by extension the US). This narrative trait will become fully developed in 1961’s Welcome Dr. Adenauer.

Rewriting the US from Occupier to Cold War Ally: Visit of Trust (1959) After Adenauer developed from an “advocate for his people” to a “partner in freedom” by 1957 in the PR films, the 23 min b/w film Visit of Trust (Besuch des Vertrauens, 1959) further develops the stability discourse by reporting on US President Eisenhower’s visit to Bonn

75 “In einer gemeinsamen Erklärung bekräftigen die beiden Staatsmänner, dass die Beendigung der unnatürlichen und ungerechten Teilung Deutschlands ein Hauptziel der Außenpolitik ihrer beiden Regierungen sei.” Partners in Freedom 7:51.

Stability Discourse 123 from August 26 to 27, 1959. With the production starting right after the visit,76 and the work completed by late September 1959,77 the process took only four weeks. Journalist Klaus Otto Skibowski, who advised the Press Office on public relations issues at that time,78 authored the script.79 The Press Office planned the film strictly for distribution through non-commercial outlets with a projected budget of DM 10,000,80 a considerably smaller amount compared to previous films that reflects the lower production cost of shooting in Germany. The film complements the stability discourse of the films on Adenauer’s US state visits by offering images of an American President coming to Germany to underline the US’s trust in the Federal Republic as a friend and as strategic partner. At the welcoming ceremony for Eisenhower at Bonn/Wahn airport, in front of a backdrop of Bundeswehr parade formations as a confident German display of new West German military power, Adenauer is shown greeting “the United States as torchbearer of freedom” (4:42).81 The film then shows Eisenhower to reciprocate by stating: “In my country, the name ‘Adenauer’ has come to symbolize the determination of the German people to remain strong and free” (5:51).82 By this Eisenhower quote, the film makes the name “Adenauer” shorthand for the West German struggle for freedom and the fight against Communism. The film’s main significance lies in the fact that it celebrates the unity between the two nations. It primarily develops this message through a celebration of the diplomatic spectacle associated with Eisenhower’s visit. A significant four minutes of the film depict Adenauer and Eisenhower in an open Mercedes on their way from the airport to Bonn, and later in various locations in Bonn, while receiving the ovations of “thousands of people” (7:36) lining the streets. Following historian Simone Derix’s observations about Charles de Gaulle’s efforts at “overwriting” collective memory of the Second World War with new

76 77 78 79

Letter by Betz (FPO) to Wiers (DW), August 29, 1959 (BArchiv B145/1453). Invoice No. 363/59 (DW), September 28, 1959 (BArchiv B145/1453). Derix, Bebilderte Politik, 230. Klaus Otto Skibowski, film script “Besuch des Vertrauens,” October 15, 1959 (BArchiv 145/1435). Qtd. in Derix, Bebilderte Politik, 223. 80 Memo by Betz (FPO), October 13, 1959 (BArchiv B145/1453). 81 “Ich habe Ihnen, Herr Präsident, wiederholt im Namen der Deutschen zum Ausdruck bringen können, dass wir in diesen so ungewöhnlich schwierigen und auf uns anlastenden Zeiten gerade in den Vereinigten Staaten den Bannerträger der Freiheit in der Welt sehen.” Visit of Trust, Deutsche Wochenschau 1959, 4:41. 82 In meinem Lande ist der Name ‘Adenauer’ zum Symbol der Entschlossenheit des deutschen Volkes geworden, stark und frei zu bleiben.” Visit of Trust, 5:51.

124 Staging West German Democracy images during his 1962 trip to the Federal Republic,83 these images on equal terms realign the collective memory of the German Second World War past. The film’s images of Eisenhower’s jubilant reception “overwrite” the widely known newsreel images of Hitler in an open Mercedes, riding through German cities during the Third Reich, and similarly of Allied generals like Eisenhower being chauffeured through these same cities’ streets in US Army Jeeps during the last years of war and the subsequent occupation. In the words of French historian Pierre Nora, the open Mercedes is a German memory space (lieu de mémoire), a location or an event intricately connected to the nation’s collective, Third Reich memory.84 A contemporary report in the magazine Der Spiegel shows that while seemingly far-fetched today, in 1959, these symbolic associations were keenly understood: “Dwight D. Eisenhower, who fourteen years ago forced the Germans to their knees for unconditional surrender, was treated yesterday evening to a triumphal procession by a quarter million Rhinelanders that had been unseen since the days of Hitler: standing for hours in an open Mercedes, he accepted the ovations of the federal Germans.”85 It is therefore significant to the film’s intentions that the Germans are shown cheering for the man who in 1944/5 had fought the Wehrmacht into submission as the commander of the Allied forces in Europe. In order for this realignment of national memory to be effective, the film’s commentary explicitly dedicates the presented spectacle to the cause of democratic cooperation and transatlantic partnership: “This is the heartfelt applause for a highly esteemed guest and great politician, an ovation free from spontaneous mass hysteria and political fanatism” (8:04).86 In the words of Derix’s analysis of Charles de Gaulle’s deliberate allusions to collective memory during his 1962 visit to West Germany, “the locales where formerly National Socialist images and voices had been celebrated were now replaced” by

83 Derix, Bebilderte Politik, 138–42. More on this complex in chapter five. 84 Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire,” Representations, no. 26 (1989): 7, https://doi.org/10.2307/2928520. 85 “Dwight D Eisenhower, der vor vierzehn Jahren die Deutschen zur bedingungslosen Kapitulation in die Knie gezwungen hatte, war am Vorabend von einer Viertelmillion Rheinländern in einem seit Hitlers Zeiten nicht mehr gesehenen Triumphzug eingeholt worden: Stundenlang im offenen Mercedes stehend, hatte er die Ovationen der Bundesbürger entgegengenommen . . .” “Eisenhower: Niemand jubelt so gut,” Der Spiegel, 36/1959, http://www. spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-42622455.html 86 “Es ist der herzliche Beifall für einen hohen Gast und großen Politiker, ein Beifall fern von spontaner Massenhysterie und politischem Fanatismus.” Visit of Trust, 8:04.

Stability Discourse 125

Figure 3.4 Eisenhower in Bonn. Visit of Trust (Besuch des Vertrauens, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1959). German Federal Archive. new images created by Adenauer and Eisenhower, that the PR film edited to maximum symbolic effect. Just like in the case of de Gaulle’s actions, these images represented the two politicians’ “vision of a purged and reformed nation.”87 In spite of it being largely gratuitous for the narrative, the car sequence thus contains a complex symbolism that realigns West German collective memory of a traumatic past. In the process, the symbolism rededicates the imagery of open Mercedes limousines and street processions that was formerly “contaminated” by its associations to Nazism to the spirit of friendship with the US.88 The film’s initial run was planned at fifty 16mm copies to be distributed to the Landesfilmdienste, the ADK, and the clerical film outlets.89 The Landesfilmdienste, who took over most of the copies,

87 Derix, Bebilderte Politik, 141. 88 These symbolic complexes will also be shown to be an intricate part of the other PR Films analyzed in the following chapters. The “overwriting of collective memory” through performative actions in the PR films forms the main point of analysis in the “reconciliation discourse” inscribed into the films on the FrancoGerman reconciliation in chapter five. 89 Letter by Thiel (Dt. Reportagefilm) to Betz (FPO), October 14, 1959 (BArchiv B145/1453).

126 Staging West German Democracy received Visit of Trust positively, and on several instances asked for extra copies beyond the initially planned fifty.90 Constant demand for extra copies that lasted well into 1960 brought the total number of copies produced to 115 by the end of that year.91 In May of 1960, shortly after the US–Soviet summit meeting in Paris was declared a failure, the Press Office remarked internally that the film continued to have a “very large echo,” and reasoned, “especially in the discussion about the summit conference, this film is a crucial source of information.”92

A Meeting among Friends and Family: Welcome Dr. Adenauer (1961) Welcome Dr. Adenauer (the English being the film’s original title) reports on Adenauer’s ninth US trip from April 11 to 18, 1961, which marked his first visit to the newly inaugurated Kennedy administration. The Press Office had planned to make a film about the visit before Adenauer left for the US. Faced with a new President in the US, the agency perceived such a film to be “especially important, since the federal chancellor’s first visit with the new American administration will be of high significance for the Federal Republic’s future situation in foreign policy, especially in regard to the United States.”93 The film was supposed to document continuity in the transatlantic partnership, in spite of the change in the Oval Office. As early as March of 1961, in anticipation of the order to make the film, the Deutsche Wochenschau reserved a spot for cameraman Wilhelm Luppa and a sound engineer in

90 The Konferenz der Landesfilmdienste für Jugend und Volksbildung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und West-Berlin EV repeatedly asked the FPO for more copies of the film to keep up with the strong demand. Letter by Konferenz der Landesfilmdienste für Jugend und Volksbildung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und West-Berlin EV to Betz (FPO), December 15, 1959 (BArchiv B145/1453); Letter by Konferenz der Landesfilmdienste für Jugend und Volksbildung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und West-Berlin EV to Betz (FPO), December 30, 1959 (BArchiv B145/1453); Letter by Konferenz der Landesfilmdienste für Jugend und Volksbildung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und West-Berlin EV to Betz (FPO), February 17, 1960 (BArchiv B145/1453). 91 Memo by Hemmerling (FPO), October 17, 1959 (BArchiv B145/1453). 92 “Insbesondere in der Diskussion um die Gipfelkonferenz ist dieser Film wesentliches Informationsmaterial.” Memo by Betz (FPO), May 25, 1960 (BArchiv B145/1453). 93 “Diese Produktion erweist sich im gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt als besonders wichtig, da der erste Besuch des Bundeskanzlers bei der neuen amerikanischen Administration für die weitere außenpolitische Situation der Bundesrepublik insbesondere im Verhältnis zu den Vereinigten Staaten von großer Bedeutung sein wird.” Memo by Brunnbauer (FPO), April 7, 1961 (BArchiv B145/1475).

Stability Discourse 127 Adenauer’s press entourage.94 Preliminary calculations for the film allocated DM 52,000 for its production. The film was not planned for commercial release and initially was to be distributed mainly to German diplomatic missions abroad.95 The rough cut was scheduled for inspection at the Press Office in early May.96 After this screening, the Deutsche Wochenschau worked on the final cut and the commentary. Hamburg-based journalist Heinrich von Tiedemann, who worked on several Deutsche Wochenschau productions between 1960 and 1961,97 was in charge of the film’s commentary.98 The Deutsche Wochenschau also paid an honorarium to the Adenauer adviser Klaus Otto Skibowski, a trained journalist who had accompanied the chancellor on his trip, and who served as consultant for the commentary and the voice recordings.99 The film’s finished commentary arrived at the Press Office for approval on May 15, 1961.100 As the last step in the production, the Deutsche Wochenschau expected Kurt Betz in Hamburg on May 16 to authorize the final cut and the commentary.101 The Deutsche Wochenschau also produced an English language version of the film in June.102 The Press Office deemed the project finished and “authorized” by July 6, 1961.103 As its main purpose, the 28 min b/w film continues and further refines the visual tropes connoting close friendship and even quasi“familial” relations with the transatlantic ally US, while at the same time, it affirms and celebrates the Federal Republic’s growing selfimage as a politically and economically sovereign nation. This latter narrative strategy becomes visible right at the film’s opening set at Bonn/Wahn airport, which features a detailed depiction of Adenauer inaugurating and “christening” a new Lufthansa Boeing 707 jet. After the ceremony, he immediately uses the airplane as his personal “Air Force Number One” for his visit to the US—a stark contrast to the unceremonious US military airplanes that had carried him to the US in 1955.

94 Letter by Purzer (DW) to von Jordan (FPO), March 11, 1961 (BArchiv B145/1475). 95 Memo by Brunnbauer (FPO), April 7, 1961 (BArchiv B145/1475). 96 Memo by Betz (FPO), May 3, 1961 (BArchiv B145/1475). 97 Among them Koblenzer Strasse 99–103, which will be discussed in chapter six. 98 Memo by Cleinow (DW), May 9, 1961 (DW Archive). 99 Memo by Betz (FPO), June 5, 1961 (BArchiv B145/1475). 100 Letter by Schwamkrug and Purzer (DW) to Betz (FPO), May 15, 1961 (DW Archive). 101 Letter by Wiers (DW) to Purzer (DW), May 10, 1961 (DW Archive). 102 Letter by Cleinow (DW) to Betz (FPO), June 2, 1961 (BArchiv B145/1475). 103 Memo by the FPO, July 6, 1961 (BArchiv B145/1475).

128 Staging West German Democracy The sequence opens with Adenauer in a medium shot, standing on a podium next to the front tip of the plane, declaring “I am giving this airplane, Boeing 707 of the German Lufthansa, the name ‘Bonn’ ” (0:40).104 He goes on to wish “the airplane, its crew and its passengers very many good and successful flights” (0:52),105 while pouring champagne over the airplane’s nose. The visual trope of a ship’s christening, a standard scene in newsreels since the genre’s beginnings, together with a close-up of the festive revelation of the airplane’s name “Bonn” while the national anthem is played (0:54), sets up a complex, quasi-sacral symbolism. The Federal Republic, represented by the delegates from the Bundestag and the diplomatic corps in attendance at the ceremony, is holding a “baptism” celebrating its economic and political achievements so far. Adenauer’s role in this context can be likened to that of a priest. Lockheed Super Constellation aircraft, the vanguard of American aeronautical engineering in the early 1950s, had already been used to great symbolic effect in Lufthansa colors in 1956’s Meeting in the Kremlin on Adenauer’s 1955 state visit to the Soviet Union to convey a sense of economic prosperity and political sovereignty under the protection of the US.106 However, the year 1960 ushered in a new era for the West German national airline with the introduction of its first jet aircraft, the Boeing 707. By ceremoniously linking the name “Bonn” with modern US technology, the film uses the Boeing jet as a complex symbol of the benefits of the transatlantic partnership. Through the visual “fetishization” of state-of-the-art US technology now available to West Germany, the film celebrates the Federal Republic’s growth in international stature and economic development in 1961. It is also symbolically significant that it is Adenauer who performs this “baptism” as Federal Chancellor. His exposed position among the assembly of Bundestag representatives, his by now achieved status as a pater patriae among the population, and his current role administering this “baptism” conflating the fate of the airplane with that of its namesake Bonn, all suggest that the Federal Republic’s successes can be credited to Adenauer personally. By linking the “baptism” with all its associations to Adenauer’s impending trip to the US, the film creates the expectation for the audience that Adenauer will do everything diplomatically possible so that the steady ascent of West Germany (also

104 “Ich taufe dieses Flugzeug, Boeing 707 der Deutschen Lufthansa, auf den Namen ‘Bonn.’ ” Welcome Dr. Adenauer, Deutsche Wochenschau 1961, 0:40. 105 “Ich wünsche dem Flugzeug, seiner Besatzung und seinen Passagieren sehr viel gute und erfolgreiche Flüge.” Welcome Dr. Adenauer, 0:52. 106 See chapter four.

Stability Discourse 129 visualized through the shot of the departing airplane’s steep climb in the title sequence, 1:25) will continue. Considering its production year of 1961, Welcome Dr. Adenauer does not dwell extensively on the details of Cold War politics to reaffirm the transatlantic partnership at a time of mounting Cold War tension, but rather on quite commonplace mutual declarations of political solidarity. These mainly occur in the film’s first, “political” half, devoted to Adenauer’s meetings with President Kennedy. Had the film still been under production on August 13, 1961, when the German Democratic Republic commenced work on the Berlin Wall, this certainly would have been different. With the Wall not yet in the picture, one main task of Welcome Dr. Adenauer was merely to dispel the impression that Adenauer and Kennedy did not get along well with each other. This seemed a necessity vis-à-vis the well-documented, restrained relationship between the young US President, who in 1957 prematurely declared in an article that “the age of Adenauer is over,” and the elderly chancellor, skeptical of Kennedy’s youth.107 To address these concerns, the film’s reporting on Adenauer’ meetings with Kennedy goes at length to underline that “The agreement and mutual respect between the two statesmen became irrevocably apparent” (6:29).108 Welcome Dr. Adenauer is also significant for offering quotes of the US President that explicitly support Adenauer’s political dogma of Western integration and to negotiate for the German unification from a position of Western strength. During a scene that shows both politicians delivering their closing statements for the media in the White House garden after the meeting, shortly before the erection of the Berlin Wall, Kennedy gives an American guarantee for West Berlin, until “Germany is reunited in peace and freedom” (7:08).109 Adenauer in his answer professes to be “very moved and touched” (8:03) by the President’s declaration of military protection and support of his policies.110 Adenauer, the elder statesman and highly experienced negotiator, the film argues, expertly advocated for and secured the US’s Cold War protection for the future. The film also uses the Washington meeting between Adenauer and Kennedy to create the impression that the Federal Chancellor and the

107 Roger Morgan, “Kennedy and Adenauer,” in John F. Kennedy and Europe, eds. Douglas Brinkley and Richard T. Griffiths (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1999), 16. 108 “Endgültig wurden hierbei das Einvernehmen und die Hochachtung deutlich, die beide Staatsmänner füreinander empfinden.” Welcome Dr. Adenauer, 6:33. 109 “Kennedy betonte die Bereitschaft der USA, die Freiheit West-Berlins zu erhalten, bis Deutschland in Frieden und Freiheit wiedervereinigt ist.” Welcome Dr. Adenauer, 7:18. 110 “Herr Präsident, ich bin sehr bewegt und gerührt durch die Worte, die Sie nach dem Kommuniqué gesprochen haben [. . .] Welcome Dr. Adenauer, 8:08.

130 Staging West German Democracy US President meet on equal terms. In the process, Welcome Dr. Adenauer compensates Adenauer’s obvious deficit in geopolitical influence compared to Kennedy by his clear advantage over the US President in political experience. Therefore, the film shows the 85-year-old chancellor lauding the 43-year-old US President, “who approaches this extraordinarily big and difficult task with great energy, great vision and great clarity of mind” (8:30).111 The effect of Adenauer’s “expert evaluation” of Kennedy in this scene is that, regarding political experience, the latter’s status is actually subjugated under Adenauer’s, who thoroughly “tested” the “green” President during their meeting. The film’s most significant symbolism, however, is not set in Washington, but in Texas, and does not involve President Kennedy, but Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson. After a transition establishes that Johnson traveled with Adenauer on the Lufthansa airplane from Washington to Texas to reinforce the impression of the countries’ equal status, the film reports on a barbeque at Johnson’s private ranch in rural Texas. In a humorous scene, the Vice-President presents Adenauer with a Texas-style “ten gallon hat” (17:56). This suggests that by 1961, a relationship that once began as a military invasion and occupation has now developed into a close friendship in which formalities no longer matter. Another scene from the barbecue sequence, during which a girls’ choir sings German songs for the chancellor (18:23), emphasizes a common cultural bond and shared ethnic heritage between the two nations that brackets out the events of the First and Second World Wars, during which the use of the German language and the display of German cultural heritage in the US had largely stopped. Adenauer’s spectacular reception was widely reported upon in the Federal Republic, with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writing that “Johnson appeared in his cowboy suit. Adenauer wore the Texas ‘Ten Gallon’ hat, which Johnson gave him. [. . .] When a children’s choir intoned [the German folk song] You, you are Close to my Heart, the federal chancellor sang along.”112 The film’s reporting on the Texas visit goes decidedly further than underlining the US–German partnership: through its explicit references

111 “[. . .] der mit großer Energie, mit großem Weitblick und mit großem Scharfblick an diese außerordentlich große und schwere Aufgabe herangeht.” Welcome Dr. Adenauer, 8:30. 112 “Johnson erschien in einem Cowboy-Anzug. Adenauer trug zu seinem grauen Anzug den texanischen ‘Zehn-Gallonen’-Hut, den ihm Johnson überreichte. [. . .] Als ein Kinderchor ‘Du, du liegst mir am Herzen’ anstimmte, sang der Bundeskanzler mit.” “Der Bundeskanzler in Texas herzlich gefeiert,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 17, 1961.

Stability Discourse 131

Figure 3.5 Adenauer in Texas. Welcome Dr. Adenauer (Deutsche Wochenschau, 1961). German Federal Archive. to the history of German immigration into Texas, like the still existent German diaspora,113 Welcome Dr. Adenauer emphasizes the common cultural and biological roots shared by Americans and Germans. Adenauer and the German delegation are not only treated informally and welcomingly, they are quite literally considered family. This establishes a quasi-biological kinship between the nations that glosses over intense moments of conflict during the recent fifty years. The film depicts the US–German relationship as something historically grown and therefore “natural.” To the West German audience, who only sixteen years earlier had seen the Americans as enemies, these images were a powerful confirmation of the effectiveness of Adenauer’s foreign policy. A parade scene set in the Texas capital Austin, depicting Adenauer and Johnson riding in an open car along Congress Avenue towards the state capitol, rounds off the triumphant impression the film renders of Adenauer’s visit to Texas. Various shots of the crowd, together with a 113 The German folksong is a reference to Texas-German, a dialect of German spoken by German immigrants to Texas. It is nowadays about to become extinct. “Remembering The Long Lost Germans Of Texas,” NPR.org, https://www.npr. org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=185348915 (accessed May 17, 2018).

132 Staging West German Democracy soundtrack suggesting a massive gathering and the commentary highlighting the “cheering of the crowd” (21:45), lend the scene the air of a grand reception of a high-ranking guest of state. In sum, the scenes from rural Texas and Austin produce images of extraordinary celebration of the German guest, which in their emphatic enthusiasm mirror the depiction of Eisenhower’s reception in Bonn two years earlier portrayed in Visit of Trust. Through its quasi-biological determination of the transatlantic partnership as natural and innate, Welcome Dr. Adenauer evinces yet another step in the evolution of the US state visit films’ picture of the transatlantic partnership. Although it was never slated for commercial release, a look at the film’s production numbers suggests that Welcome Dr. Adenauer was among the more popular and successful PR films. By July of 1961, the Deutsche Reportagefilm had produced 265 16mm copies.114 Of the film’s English language version, one 35mm copy and six 16mm copies were distributed to the German Information Center (GIC) in New York City, which then was to distribute the copies to the Federal Republic’s general consulates in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.115 The Press Office’s interest in an English version of the film can easily be explained by the exuberant footage of Adenauer being honored and celebrated during his stay in Texas. The film’s emphasis of the two country’s shared cultural and ethnic roots, and the portrayal of Adenauer as Kennedy’s and Johnson’s equal, had the potential to broaden the chancellor’s appeal in the US. Interest in the film was renewed in the aftermath of Kennedy’s tragic assassination on November 22, 1963, when “considering current political information of the population,” the Federal Press Office ordered a further thirty copies of the film in 16mm for “use in non-commercial settings within the Federal Republic.”116

“Let Them Come to Berlin”: Adenauer’s Departure from the PR Films in The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy (1963) When US President Kennedy finally announced plans for a longawaited visit to the Federal Republic from June 23 to 26, 1963, the Deutsche Wochenschau saw a film on Kennedy’s visit as the event of

114 Memo for I/1A (FPO) of July 29, 1961 (BArchiv B145/1475). There exists a conflicting, higher number of copies (325), but there is only one document to claim this number. Letter by Thiel (Dt. Reportagefilm) to FPO, July 14, 1961 (BArchiv B145/1475). Since the other number of copies (265) is well documented by the FPO files, I am following this number. 115 Letter BPA to Foreign Office, June 23, 1961; Telex to the FPO, July 3, 1961 (BArchiv B145/1475). 116 “Genehmigungsverfügung” (FPO), December 5, 1963 (BArchiv B145/1475).

Stability Discourse 133 the year. In a memorandum of June 18, shortly before the visit, Editor in Chief Manfred Purzer proclaimed enthusiastically: “Our goal for the film on the Kennedy visit: a [film] rating of ‘especially valuable,’ and international recognition.”117 The project, which was eventually released as The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy (Deutschland grüßt Kennedy) on the Berlin Wall’s second anniversary on August 13, 1963,118 was the last film produced on the transatlantic partnership before Adenauer officially resigned from office on October 15, 1963 and represents the end point of the PR films’ stability discourse on the transatlantic partnership. While the impending visit created much anticipation among the public, and among the Deutsche Wochenschau, the Federal Press Office’s initial planning prior to the visit gave no indication of an especially elaborate film project. In May of 1963, the Adenauer administration still planned a 25 min b/w film that was to be produced in both German and English.119 The Deutsche Wochenschau quoted a pre-calculated budget of DM 98,000 for the film,120 which was quite substantial. The high cost was explained by “unavoidable transportation and flight costs,”121 as the camera teams would have to fly to West Berlin to accompany the President during the much-anticipated high point of his visit. By early June of 1963, however, the Federal Press Office had changed its mind and decided to shoot the film in color for a total projected cost of DM 175,000,122 which helps explain Purzer’s enthusiasm for the project. This decision made the film the most expensive PR film production of the Adenauer era.123

117 “Unser Ziel beim Film über den Kennedy-Besuch: Prädikat ‘besonders wertvoll’ und internationale Anerkennung.” Memorandum “Betrifft: Kennedy-Besuch FARBE” (DW), June 18, 1963 (DW Archive). 118 The title translation to English follows the title of the film’s English language version. Telex by Matern (FPO) to DW, n.d. (BArchiv B145/4670). 119 “Genehmigungsverfügung,” FPO, May 28, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4670). 120 “Vorkalkulation zu Dokumentarfilm ‘Staatsbesuch Präsident Kennedy,” n.d. (BArchiv B145/4670). 121 “Relativ hoch zu Buch schlagen die unvermeidlichen Transport- und Flugkosten.” Letter by Wiers/Purzer (DW) to Betz (FPO), May 15, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4670). 122 “Genehmigungsverfügung” (FPO), June 6, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4670). 123 Soon after the initial calculation of DM 98,000 for a b/w film, there was debate within the Federal Press Office as to why the film was not shot in color. An internal memo argued that a color film would double the cost, that the color material would produce bad results in rainy weather, and that color film would further complicate the logistics of shooting: with the simultaneous shooting for the regular newsreel reporting requiring b/w material, two separate camera teams would be needed, thus complicating the logistics and exacerbating the shooting cost. Memo (FPO), May 30, 1963 (B145/4670).

134 Staging West German Democracy Faced with the project’s massive logistic proportions, the Deutsche Wochenschau used every resource at their disposal. A total of thirtyeight employees worked on the project, while twenty cameramen in seven teams shot about 10,000 meters of raw material with the “latest technology.”124 Editor in Chief Manfred Purzer urged his staff to deliver material that was “visually impressive” and which reflected the “reactions of the Germans (. . .) to Kennedy. Therefore: Applause, cheering, waving of flags.”125 About Adenauer, Purzer had less kind words to say: “It would be nonsense to shoot Adenauer in full screen. The old man no longer takes well to close-ups in color. As to Kennedy, always get close.”126 This comment echoes similar observations about Adenauer’s seeming tired on screen by the Press Office in 1963, and which influenced the production of the legacy film In the Service of the Fatherland.127 An obvious indication of the close alliance between Adenauer and the Deutsche Wochenschau cameramen who accompanied him, the chancellor personally intervened in order to help his cameraman Wilhelm Luppa obtain crucial images for the film during the visit. Luppa was apparently involved in constant struggles with Kennedy’s FBI bodyguards in his efforts to obtain close-ups of the politicians. At some point Adenauer intervened: “The chancellor recognized the distress of the cameraman who had been shadowing him for over ten years, and scolded the FBI officers: ‘now, leave my Mr. Luppa alone at last.’ The chancellor’s word did wonders. Starting there and then, Luppa was never bothered again.”128 Reflecting the Deutsche Wochenschau’s enthusiasm about the project, The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy is an ambitious 57 min color film, which in its overall narrative tone continues the

124 “Die waren ausgerüstet mit den modernsten technischen Geräten.” “Deutschland grüßt Kennedy. Der einmalige Farb-Dokumentarfilm über den Besuch des US-Präsidenten in Deutschland,” n.d. (DW Archive). 125 “Ungemein wichtig ist es, die Reaktion der Deutschen – wo auch immer – auf Kennedy festzuhalten. Also: Beifall, Jubel, Fahnenschwenken.” Memo by Purzer (DW), June 18, 1963 (DW Archive). 126 “Adenauer in Farbe bildfüllend aufzunehmen, wäre Unsinn. Der ‚Alte‘ verträgt in Farbe keine Großaufnahme mehr. Bei Kennedy nichts wie ran.“ Memo by Purzer, (DW) June 18, 1963 (DW Archive). 127 See the discussion of the film in chapter seven for more details. 128 “Der Kanzler erkannte die Not des Kameramannes, der ihn seit über 10 Jahren auf Schritt und Tritt begleitet, und ermahnte die FBI-Beamten: ‘Lassen Sie mir doch endlich meinen Herrn Luppa in Ruh’. Das Kanzlerwort wirkte Wunder. Von dieser Sekunde an blieb Luppa unbehelligt.” “Deutschland grüßt Kennedy. Der einmalige Farb-Dokumentarfilm über den Besuch des US-Präsidenten in Deutschland,” n.d. (DW Archive).

Stability Discourse 135 optimistic and relaxed atmosphere of a meeting between close friends established by its precursors. Yet at the same time, considering that this was one of the last major diplomatic events of Adenauer’s chancellorship, The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy also pays tribute to a departing chancellor and, in the interest of Adenauer’s political legacy, strives to underline Adenauer’s achievements in turning the developing friendship with the US into what would simply become known as the “transatlantic partnership.” The stability discourse emerges as a central part of the film’s narrative in a scene depicting Kennedy’s welcome at Bonn/Wahn airport. While showing Kennedy and Adenauer walking across the red carpet on the airfield, the commentary highlights the politically precarious background of the “working visit” (4:23): “Europe is marked by political change. The Eastern Block is drifting towards an ideological discord. This background characterizes the gravity of the moment that brings John F. Kennedy and Konrad Adenauer together” (4:42).129 To the audience, this summarizes two very turbulent years, which saw among other things the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. These words set a task to be at least symbolically “completed” in the course of the film: Adenauer and Kennedy have to find a common political line that continues to guarantee safety and prosperity in uncertain times. At the same time, the film leaves no doubt that this “challenge” will successfully be met by the American President and the German Federal Chancellor, with the former portrayed as young, charismatic, and energetic, and the latter as wise and experienced. Reflecting its origins in turbulent Cold War times, the film explicitly underlines the American support for Adenauer’s policy of Western integration and emphasizes the Federal Republic’s crucial role in the Western Cold War alliance. Still at the airport, Kennedy’s assertion that “your safety is our safety, your liberty is our liberty, and any attack on your soil is an attack upon our own,”130 makes clear from the film’s beginning that the two countries’ fates are inseparably intertwined through both friendship and the strategic complexities of the Cold War alliance. Kennedy’s praise for Adenauer as “a great European statesman, an architect of unity, a champion of liberty, a friend of the American people” (7:43),131 leaves no doubt for the audience that Adenauer’s now

129 “Europa steht unter dem Eindruck politischer Wandlungen. Der Ostblock treibt einem ideologischen Zerwürfnis entgegen. Dieser Hintergrund bestimmt den Ernst des Augenblicks, der John F. Kennedy mit Konrad Adenauer zusammenführt“ The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy, Deutsche Wochenschau 1963, 4:42. 130 Quoted from Kennedy’s English original. 131 Quoted from Kennedy’s English original.

136 Staging West German Democracy fourteen-year-old chancellorship was perceived by the US as an anchor of stability in the turmoil of the Cold War. Considering the audience’s awareness of Adenauer’s impending resignation in October 1963, Kennedy’s words become a tribute to Adenauer’s life’s work. On similar terms as in its 1961 successor film, a predominant strand in The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy’s narrative is devoted to positing the energetic, handsome, and youthful 46-year-old Kennedy and the geriatric, 86-year-old Adenauer as equals, both regarding their physical condition and political matters. A scene showing the two politicians departing from Bonn town hall is particularly illustrative in this context. It shows Adenauer and Kennedy in an open Mercedes, being chauffeured through the enthusiastic crowd of thousands of cheering Germans. Both Kennedy and Adenauer are seen smiling and waving, while the commentary argues: “After a car ride of several hours, during which they were standing, after two speeches, and countless handshakes, the two statesmen show no signs of fatigue” (19.15).132 This in effect likens Adenauer’s stamina to a man forty years his junior. The audience then learns that the affinities between Adenauer and Kennedy also extend to agreement in Cold War politics and an excellent personal rapport: The two statesmen who today are negotiating on questions of a multi-lateral, atomic NATO force, a ban on nuclear testing, and problems of the Western peace strategy, are separated by 40 years. But these 40 years, of which many thought they would have a separating effect, do not exist. The President is openly showing his admiration for the Federal Chancellor. And Adenauer makes it known how deeply he agrees with the dynamic and elastic policies of the American. This may be perhaps the most important result of the two work meetings (22:17).133

132 “Nach einer mehrstündigen Fahrt, die sie stehend absolvierten, nach zwei Reden und unzähligen Händedrücken, zeigen die beiden Staatsmänner keine Spur von Ermüdung.” The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy, 19:15. 133 “40 Jahre trennen die beiden Staatsmänner, die heute über Fragen einer multilateralen NATO-Atomstreitmacht, eines Atomversuchsstopps, und über Probleme der westlichen Friedensstrategie beraten. Doch diese 40 Jahre, von denen viele geglaubt haben, sie wirkten trennend, sind nicht vorhanden. Der Präsident zeigt offen die Hochachtung, die er vor dem Bundeskanzler empfindet. Und Adenauer lässt erkennen, wie sehr er mit der dynamischen und elastischen Politik des Amerikaners übereinstimmt. Das ist vielleicht das wichtigste Ergebnis der beiden Arbeitsbesprechungen.“ The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy, 22:17.

Stability Discourse 137 In underlining the two leaders’ political agreement and mutual admiration for each other, the film sets the stage for its discussion of the question of German unity. The scenes on the talks between Adenauer and Kennedy in Bonn give the impression of unconditional American support for Adenauer’s political line of reunification through Western integration. After the building of the Berlin Wall closed the last loophole to the West and rendered a solution of the new “German question” impossible in the near future, the traumatic events of August 13, 1961 and the question what would become of relatives behind the Iron Curtain continued to occupy the Federal Republic’s collective imaginary in 1963. The film therefore presents the audience with a statement from the President that expressed sympathy and support for the German wish for reunification, even if there was no immediate solution. The scene in question is set during a press conference in the great hall of the Foreign Office in Bonn. It depicts Kennedy addressing the journalists in front of a giant fresco of a world map, which highlights the geopolitical aspect of the ensuing statement. Kennedy compares the German situation to a hypothetical scenario: “If the people of the United States had lost a struggle and were divided along the Mississippi river, it would be our wish to be reunited. It is the task of our policy to bring back together the families. At the moment, there is no solution. We hope that the desire for self-determination will continue unabated” (26:35).134 Kennedy’s carefully-worded statement that circumnavigates the reason for this separation, Hitler’s war of aggression, represents a unanimous support of Adenauer’s political doctrine regarding West Germany. The press conference scene is integral in the film’s task to underline the trust placed by the US into Adenauer’s Deutschlandpolitik. Kennedy’s declaration of support in Bonn sets the stage for the film’s climax, Kennedy’s visit to West Berlin on June 26, 1963. The film’s reporting on this visit further develops the symbolic language that seeks to straddle the complexities of the “German question.” One cannot underestimate the symbolic value of Kennedy’s visit to West Berlin in 1963, two years after the Western part of the city awoke to a sealed border that separated lives, families, and cultures. Kennedy’s visit to the surrounded Western enclave was widely perceived as a much-needed sign of American solidarity among West Germans and

134 “Wenn das Volk der Vereinigten Staaten nach einer Niederlage durch den Mississippi geteilt wäre, dann wäre unser Wunsch, wiedervereint zu sein. Es ist die Aufgabe unserer Politik, die Familien zusammenzuführen. Augenblicklich gibt es keine Lösung. Wir hoffen, dass der Wunsch nach Selbstbestimmung unverändert anhält.” The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy, 26:35.

138 Staging West German Democracy the citizens of West Berlin.135 The commentary explicitly addresses this sentiment during a scene featuring long shots of the open car carrying Kennedy, Adenauer, and Lord Mayor Willy Brandt (SPD), interspersed with images of house fronts, balconies, and windows populated by cheering West Berliners: “The otherwise so sober Berliners are cheering. But if you look closely, you can also make out tears on peoples’ faces. These make it clear that through the presence of this man [Kennedy, JU], fear for the future turns into hope” (46:05).136 In order to underline the symbolic significance of Kennedy’s visit, the film provides the audience with a brief but visually drastic overview of key sites of the German–German dilemma, such as the sealed façades of the Bernauer Strasse (41:37), the Wall at the Brandenburg Gate replete with East German propaganda posters (42:28), “zonal [surveillance] cameras” (42:51) being threateningly “put into position” like machine guns,137 Checkpoint Charlie (43:57), and the Airlift Memorial (45:27), a visual reminder of West Berlin’s spirit of resistance. The film’s reporting on these locations (either as under the domain of a faceless but threatening communist enemy, or as examples of selfless US support) points the finger accusingly towards the East, as much as it suggests that US support for the beleaguered city will continue. The Schöneberg town hall sequence provides the rhetoric complement to the film’s preceding scenes that present Kennedy gathering first-hand insight into West Berlin’s predicament by touring the city. Two editing elements underline a quality about Kennedy in this sequence that makes him transcend the role of US head of government and appear as a savior figure for West Berliners (and, by extension, all Germans) on the movie screen. The first consists of reaction shots of the ecstatic crowd interspersed with long shots of

135 On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Kennedy’s speech on June 26, 2013, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle aptly summarized the Berliner’s reaction to Kennedy’s visit: “In those difficult times, President Kennedy gave Berliners hope and brought new confidence to all the German people.” Westerwelle qtd in: Auswärtiges Amt, “Federal Foreign Office – Foreign Minister Westerwelle marks the 50th Anniversary of President Kennedy’s Berlin Speech,” https://www.auswaertiges- amt.de/en/Newsroom/130626-bm- kennedy/ 256462 (accessed May 17, 2018). 136 “Die sonst so nüchternen Berliner jubeln. Aber wer genau hinsieht, entdeckt in den Gesichtern der Menschen auch Tränen. Sie machen deutlich, dass sich die Furcht vor der Zukunft durch die Anwesenheit dieses Mannes in Hoffnung verwandelt.” The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy, 46:05. 137 “Minuten bevor der Präsident das Brandenburger Tor erreicht, bringen die Kommunisten eine Propagandatafel in Stellung. Als die Wagenkolonne in die Straße des 17. Junis einbiegt, werden Zonenkameras aufgebaut.” The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy, 42:51.

Stability Discourse 139 Kennedy delivering his rhetorically elegant address that distinguishes the city as a “defended island of freedom” on the “front lines” of the free world.138 The second editing element concerns the stark contrast between the earlier cheering and the following, sacral silence of the crowd, when Kennedy signs the city’s Golden Book, accompanied only by the sound and close-up shots of the Freedom Bell on top of the Schöneberg town hall, followed by a minute of silence (52:00). Right before the signing, however, the film includes a short but telling sequence suggesting that the film was used for political power brokering. The film shows Willy Brandt, Lord Mayor of West Berlin who returned to his post after losing to Adenauer as chancellor candidate in the 1961 federal election, and who would in 1965 go up (albeit unsuccessfully) against Ludwig Erhard (CDU), being hooted down by “Kennedy, Kennedy” calls when he tried to address the crowd that Kennedy would now sign the Golden Book (50:55). The scene renders Brandt’s considerable public appeal ineffective next to Kennedy’s and lasts for about ten seconds, an eternity of screen time in which the man often referred to as the “German Kennedy” is shown powerless in front of the crowd.139 A scene of Adenauer being hooted down would have been inconceivable in PR films, and one cannot help but draw the conclusion that this scene was deliberately included in the film. Brandt was thirty-six years younger than Adenauer, and in general looked much more like a natural German counterpart to the American on the screen. Kennedy and Brandt were perceived as “almost like brothers” by the press.140 The leader of the SPD political opposition in the Bundestag and the party’s chancellor candidate, Brandt was one of Adenauer’s and the CDU’s most formidable opponents. Showing him unable to contain the crowd made him look inferior compared to Adenauer, who always was shown to be in control. When after those ten long seconds, Brandt is finally allowed to speak, he introduces the signing of the Golden Book in a solemn voice as a “truly important moment in this city’s history” (51:20).141 To the 138 John F. Kennedy, “ ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ Speech (June 26, 1963),” Miller Center, http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/speech-3376 (accessed September 8, 2016). 139 For an example of Brandt’s nickname, see Daniel Koerfer, “Der deutsche Kennedy und seine Stadtkommandanten,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, October 2, 2010. 140 Arne Hofmann, The Emergence of Détente in Europe: Brandt, Kennedy and the Formation of Ostpolitik (New York: Routledge, 2007), 13. 141 “Nun sind wir an einem wahrhaft bedeutsamen Augenblick in der Geschichte dieser Stadt angekommen. Präsident Kennedy wird sich – angesichts des Volkes von Berlin – eintragen in unser Goldenes Buch.” The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy, 51:17.

140 Staging West German Democracy swelling sound of the Freedom Bell, a present given to West Berlin by the US in 1950, Kennedy is shown signing the book in a medium long shot (51:45). A close-up of the bell (52:00) interspersed by a long shot of the quiet crowd (52:08) introduces a frontally filmed medium long shot of Adenauer, Kennedy, and Brandt standing on the stage in silent attention during a minute of silence, accompanied only by the sound of the Freedom Bell (52:17). A final cut back to the Freedom Bell visually frames the ceremony, after which a long shot of the crowd with swelling of cheers marks its end (52:25). In its sacral and ecclesiastic symbolic connotations, this remarkable scene creates the impression that the “savior” Kennedy commits, “in writing,” to the protection of Berlin in a solemn declaration. This ceremoniously dedicates Kennedy’s presence in Berlin and his political work to the project of the German unification. President Kennedy’s depiction in this scene is another instance in which the PR films relied on quasi-religious depictions of charismatic, masculine leadership. Considering Kennedy’s popularity in West Germany and West Berlin, the Press Office and the Deutsche Wochenschau planned to aggressively promote The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy. The German Columbia Filmgesellschaft division was contracted to distribute the film to West German movie theaters for commercial screenings. The Deutsche Wochenschau also planned promotion for the film “especially” through the pro-government Springer press.142 In spite of these considerable promotion efforts the film was not a box office success, and audience numbers remained unsatisfactory for Columbia.143 Nevertheless, the company decided to stick to its plan to screen the film in all major West German cities in the pre-evening slot. Columbia also informed Deutsche Wochenschau Director Heinz Wiers that “the film will be declared a teaching aid in the states of Hamburg, North RhineWestphalia, and Hesse, so that we can show it in all schools. This way it is ensured that many youngsters of 12 years or older will watch the film.”144

142 “Weitere Pressekontakte, vor allem in Hamburg mit dem Springer-Konzern, bleiben der DW vorbehalten.” Memo by Purzer (DW), July 24, 1963 (DW Archive). 143 “Leider findet der Film auch in Deutschland nicht das Interesse, das wir uns alle erhofft haben.” Letter by Müller (Columbia) to Wiers (DW), October 4, 1963 (DW Archive). 144 “Wir konnten jetzt erreichen, dass in den Ländern Hamburg, NordrheinWestfalen und Hessen der Film als Unterrichtsmittel erklärt wird, so dass wir denselben in allen Schulen vorführen können. Auf diese Weise ist gewährleistet, dass viele Jugendliche ab 12 Jahren den Film sehen werden.” Letter by Müller (Columbia) to Wiers (DW), October 4, 1963 (DW Archive).

Stability Discourse 141 In the aftermath of Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963, the film gained more popularity. On the day of Kennedy’s funeral on November 25, “numerous FRG citizens, some of whom stood in line,” saw free screenings of the film.145 Part of the problem regarding the film’s poor performance in commercial screenings was that noncommercial showings of the film in 16mm format, such as by the Landesfilmdienst Stuttgart, further detracted from the film’s commercial audience and impacted revenue for Columbia in a “very significant way.”146 In Pforzheim, the proprietor of several movie theaters in the city canceled his showing contract with Columbia in protest when he learned that the film had been shown free to the public in a special screening the night before.147 The Deutsche Wochenschau reacted to this protest by “restricting” non-commercial showings, but defended these nonetheless by referring to the Press Office’s plans for the film: “[. . .] the Federal Press Office apparently thought that a limited use in a noncommercial setting might at least still have political effects, after the film unfortunately did not succeed in commercial distribution.”148 By February of 1964 the modest revenue numbers left the Deutsche Wochenschau with “little hope” that the film would recover the cost of its copies.149 Apart from its commercial failure, The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy still seems to have met its mark with regard to its political PR potential. The film was widely circulated in non-commercial settings such as schools and universities, and through the Landesfilmdienste. Among other screening locations were also the Amerikahäuser in Bremen and Heidelberg.150 The film outlet Christlicher Filmdienst reported that with 6,000 viewers “during 50 events” within ten days,

145 Derix, Bebilderte Politik, 270. 146 “Diese Vorführungen stören [. . .] unsere gewerblichen Auswertungsrechte ganz beträchtlich.” Letter by Müller (Columbia) to DW, December 4, 1963 (DW Archive). 147 Letter by Geiger (Lichtspieltheater Rex, Rio, Roxy) to Columbia-Bavaria, December 7, 1963 (DW Archive). 148 “Im übrigen hat man offenbar im Presse- und Informationsamt geglaubt, daß, nachdem der Film im gewerbsmäßigen Verleih leiden keinen Erfolg hatte, eine beschränkte Verwertung auf nichtgewerblichem Gebiet wenigstens noch rein politische Wirkungen haben könnte.” Letter by Wiers / Purzer (DW) to Columbia-Bavaria, December 9, 1963 (DW Archive). 149 “Danach sehen wir wenig Hoffnung, die reinen Kopienkosten wieder hereinzubekommen.” Letter by Wiers / Purzer (DW) to Schäfer (Dt. Reportagefilm), February 24, 1964 (DW Archive). 150 “Das Amerika-Haus im Februar,” Weser-Kurier, February 1, 1964; “Deutschlandbesuch Kennedys im Film,” Rhein-Neckar Zeitung, October 21, 1963.

142 Staging West German Democracy The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy had been its most successful film during the fall of 1963.151 The CDU also used the film widely in its PR work and organized public screenings through the party’s district chapters, some of which were accompanied by political speakers.152 For example, the CDU district chapter of Emmendingen screened the film in several communities through showings attended by up to 300–400 people during the spring of 1964.153 In addition, a total of about 145,000 Americans saw the film through its US release.154 Kennedy himself also saw the film, after he received a copy from the Press Office as a present,155 and reportedly called it “one of the best documentaries I ever saw.”156 During a US trip in October 1963, the Deutsche Wochenschau Editor in Chief Manfred Purzer reported to the Press Office that the film had a “tremendous impact on the public opinion of the Americans.”157 Apart from its financial troubles, the film also created considerable political turmoil in West Berlin and beyond. Prior to the visit, there had been “conflict” between Adenauer and West Berlin’s Lord Mayor Brandt, with discussion about who would take a leading role in the West Berlin visit:158 Adenauer (whose presence as Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic had mere symbolic significance, since West Berlin did not formally belong to West Germany), or the actual head of the local government, his political opponent Brandt. The previously discussed scene in which Brandt looked powerless in front of the Schöneberg town hall crowd illustrates that the rivalry between Adenauer and Brandt informed the film’s production. This of course did not go unnoticed by the SPD. With the 1965 federal election already on the horizon in 1963, and considering Kennedy’s mass appeal in the Federal Republic, the social democrats were dissatisfied with the portrayal of their chancellor candidate and complained to the Deutsche Wochenschau’s board of directors. Not only the short scene of Brandt seeming powerless, but specifically Brandt’s absence from the frame during the film’s excerpts of Kennedy’s iconic speech drew the SPD’s

151 “Kennedy-Film hat den stärksten Zuspruch,” Hersfelder Volkszeitung, December 10, 1963. 152 “Ein Leben für die Freiheit,” Badische Zeitung, September 17, 1963. 153 “Großartiger Erfolg des Kennedy-Films: Politische Aufklärungsarbeit Der CDU,” Waldkircher Volkszeitung, March 11, 1964. 154 Derix, Bebilderte Politik, 270. 155 “Streit um Kennedy-Film-Premiere,” Hersfelder Volkszeitung, August 13, 1963. 156 Letter by Purzer (DW) to Werner (Bavaria Filmgesellschaft), December 29, 1963 (DW Archive). 157 Letter by Purzer (DW) to Betz (FPO), October 22, 1963 (DW Archive). 158 Derix, Bebilderte Politik, 271.

Stability Discourse 143 criticism. SPD politician Hermann Schmitt-Vockenhausen complained to the board that Brandt’s perceived omission from this scene constituted a “distortion of facts.”159 The premiere was set for August 13, 1963, the second anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall, when the film was to open simultaneously in first-release theaters in West Berlin and in Frankfurt am Main.160 In a move that suggests his disapproval of the film and amounted to a minor scandal, Brandt as Lord Mayor of West Berlin and one of the film’s main protagonists chose not to attend the premiere.161 Instead, the Berlin Senate made it known to the press that August 13 was a day on which it preferred a quiet day of remembrance over “splendid parades.”162 The film generally had positive reviews, mostly in the regional press and in the pro-government Springer press, such as in Die Welt, where reviewer Hans-Joachim Kausch praised the film’s quality as a historic “document.”163 On the other hand, while praising the film overall, the Movie Review Board for Youth and Schools of West Berlin problematized the film as an example of “film’s potential for manipulation vis-à-vis the up to date reporting of television (. . .) The film places emphases, underlines the accord between the statesmen Kennedy and Adenauer, strives to cast into relief the national aspect.”164 The film won the Federal Prize for Documentary Film (Kulturfilmpreis des Bundes) in 1963, which carried a purse of DM 60,000.165 This met with criticism in the left-leaning daily Frankfurter Rundschau, which criticized that the film as a quasi-government production received a federal film award. Polemically entitled “Into one’s own Pockets,” the article highlighted that the film’s producer Deutsche Wochenschau was partly owned by the federation. The article argued about the company’s two newsreels “that they are very Bonn-friendly in their political commenting and reporting.”166 This indicates that by 1963, there was an

159 Interview with former Deutsche Wochenschau Editor in Chief Manfred Purzer, Munich, June 27, 2015. I did not find any archival evidence suggesting that the SPD’s complaint resulted in a re-editing of the film. 160 Memo (Filmreferat FPO), August 5, 1963 (BArchiv145/4670). 161 “Brandt kam nicht,” Peiner Rundschau, August 15, 1963. 162 “Prunkparaden,” Hersfelder Volkszeitung, n.d. 163 “Als Kennedy in Deutschland war,” Die Welt, August 15, 1963. 164 “Die grössere Manipulierbarkeit des Films gegenüber der aktuellen Berichterstattung des Fernsehens wird deutlich: Der Film setzt Akzente, betont die Übereinstimmung der Staatsmänner Kennedy und Adenauer, will den nationalen Aspekt herausarbeiten.” Qtd in Derix, Bebilderte Politik, 269. 165 Letter by Fuchs (Ministry of the Interior) to DW, October 23, 1963 (DW Archive). 166 In the German original, the article criticizes the newsreel companies “[. . .] daß sie in ihrer politischen Kommentierung und Berichterstattung sehr bonnfreundlich sind.” “In die eigene Tasche,” Frankfurter Rundschau, November 2, 1963.

144 Staging West German Democracy increased public awareness about the PR films’ origins as Press Office PR productions that portrayed Adenauer and his politics in a favorable light. On the other hand, many other papers nevertheless remained entirely uncritical in their appraisal of the film, and like conservative, pro-government-leaning Die Welt, praised “the toil of the seven hardworking camera groups of the Deutsche Wochenschau,” instead of reflecting critically about pro-government bias.167

Conclusion: Advertising a Political Path Towards Security, Stability, and Prosperity Regarding their overall PR message, the US state visit films through complex symbolisms display a gradual consolidation from a strategic alliance in which the Federal Republic represented the humble student to the US’s Western values to a true “transatlantic partnership,” in which common biological and cultural traits are emphasized. While 1953’s A Man Advocates for his People underlined in its title that Adenauer came as a modest petitioner without full sovereignty to the US, this stance notably changes in the 1955 films with their casual references to the impending political sovereignty. By 1961’s Welcome Dr. Adenauer, the Federal Republic had developed into a confident, leading industrial nation in Europe that boldly described its status as “family” to the US. Intrinsically connected to the film’s stability discourse is a defense and validation of Adenauer’s doctrine of reunification through Western integration through quotes from US Presidents, a process culminating in Kennedy’s 1963 expression of US support in the issue in The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy. Throughout these films, a strategy to recast the US from the role of occupier and former Second World War enemy to a provider of peace and economic prosperity strongly influences the films’ commentaries and symbolism. What remains constant in the films’ evolution is that they describe the US military protection as a necessary precondition for the Federal Republic’s development and the territorial integrity of West Berlin. The excellent state of the transatlantic partnership, each of the films argues, is the yardstick against which Adenauer’s politics should be measured. At the heart of their political message, the US state visit films all echo the CDU’s most memorable campaign slogan of the Adenauer period, “no experiments.” The stability discourse, the assertion that Adenauer as the internationally respected elder statesman had brought West Germany on a stable success course due to his close alignment of the country with the United States, is the films’ organizing principle. To

167 “Als Kennedy in Deutschland war.”

Stability Discourse 145 their West German viewers, the films contain a stern warning. They suggest that any deviation from Adenauer’s political course will pose a serious risk for the security and prosperity of West Germany. Less experienced and internationally less well-regarded politicians, the films frequently suggest in their narratives, are prone to fall victim to the intense complexities of the Cold War geopolitical landscape that Adenauer is shown to navigate so effortlessly in the films. To the US, on the other hand, the films in English language versions argue that with Adenauer, there is stability, continuity, and predictability in the transatlantic partnership.

146

Four Cold Warrior Discourse: The Return of the “Hero-Father” in Meeting in the Kremlin (1956)

Introduction On September 8, 1955, Konrad Adenauer embarked upon his only state visit to the Soviet Union.1 The outcome of the tense meetings in Moscow would be remembered as one of his most important accomplishments as chancellor in the Federal Republic: while negotiating in Moscow, Adenauer’s delegation obtained the Soviet Union’s promise to release the last remaining German POWs still interned in Soviet camps, about 10,000 in number. Upon his return from Moscow, a grateful West German population celebrated Adenauer for achieving a diplomatic “victory” over the Soviet Union, the old Third Reich and the present Cold War enemy. After all, the Wehrmacht’s catastrophic defeat against the Red Army ten years earlier still loomed large in the collective West German memory, as did the unresolved fate of the many German soldiers still in Soviet hands. In 1955, the notion of a state visit to Moscow, the capital of the communist superpower and main Cold War antagonist, raised eyebrows in the West. Considering the horrific consequences of Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union of 1941, such a Soviet–West German summit meeting also promised to be of an extremely precarious diplomatic nature. Consequently, it was anxiously followed by West Germany’s Cold War allies and foes, and subsequently exploited on both sides of the Iron Curtain for political purposes. This chapter analyzes the 1956 PR film Meeting in the Kremlin (Begegnung im Kreml), which reports on Adenauer’s historic visit to Moscow from September 8–14, 1955. In its inherent symbolism, the 1

This chapter is a revised and significantly extended version of my article: Jan Uelzmann, “Symbolic Homecoming of the «Hero-Father»: Realignment of National Memory in the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau Special Feature on Konrad Adenauer’s 1955 State Visit to Moscow,” Colloquia Germanica 45, no. 1 (2012): 41–68.

147

148 Staging West German Democracy 34 min b/w film is one of the most complex films that the Deutsche Wochenschau produced for the Press Office during the Adenauer years. The analysis focuses on the film’s narrative structure and argues that, besides celebrating Adenauer’s diplomatic success that brought closure for thousands of German families, the film was constructed to deliberately manipulate West German collective memory of the Second World War and its aftermath. It argues that the film in its key scenes functions in complex ways as a psychological “projection screen”,2 designed to aid West Germans in coming to terms with one of the great traumas of the German Second World War experience: the defeat of and separation from their husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers. As such, Meeting in the Kremlin can be identified as an important filmic manifestation of prevalent strands of early 1950s memory work. This memory work sought to shift the image of Second World War Germany from one of a military aggressor and perpetrator of crimes against humanity towards a war victim and sufferer of hardship endured by a heroic community. This memory work was a necessary precondition to the successful rebuilding process in postwar West Germany. In historian Robert G. Moeller’s analysis: “[. . .] Germans made the transition from the racially defined ‘community of the people’ of the Third Reich to the community of victims of a war for which they accepted no responsibility, to the community of survivors that gradually emerged from the ruins, ready to preserve and rebuild what remained of the ‘good’ Germany.”3 Moeller emphasizes the importance of this alternative “imagined community” at a time during which Germans were looking to “establish a sense of collectivity that did not draw on a nationalist rhetoric contaminated by its association with National Socialism”: [. . .] selective memories of the war’s end also shaped the basis on which a new West Germany was erected. Shared values in the Federal Republic were not only created by celebrations of present prosperity and predictions of uninterrupted economic growth. One of the most powerful integrative myths of the 1950s emphasized not German well-being but German suffering; it stressed that Germany was a nation of victims, an “imagined

2

3

This reading builds on research by Uta Schwarz on Adenauer’s screen persona in regular newsreels. See Schwarz, Wochenschau, 352–3. Please see also my detailed discussion of Adenauer’s function in the PR films in chapter one. Robert G. Moeller, “The Politics of the Past in the 1950s: Rhetorics of Victimization in East and West Germany,” in Germans as Victims: Remembering the Past in Contemporary Germany, ed. William John Niven (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 38.

Cold Warrior Discourse 149 community” defined by the lasting consequences of the devastation of the Second World War.4 According to Moeller, “the stories of expellees and POWs in the Soviet Union became the stories of all West Germans; in the categories used by contemporaries, the fate of these groups came to represent the fate of postwar Germany.”5 The new self-image of a “nation of victims” helped create a common West German identity, and in its quality as an “integrative myth” it was a crucial psychological foundation for the success of the ensuing economic miracle. As Mark Spicka has demonstrated, allusions to the German “community of victims,” to flight from the East, hunger, and material deprivation were a central thrust of the campaigning work of Adenauer’s CDU during the 1953 federal election.6 This chapter shows that Meeting in the Kremlin is fully in line with the CDU’s 1953 PR objectives and realigns the West German Second World War collective memory along the terms described above. While the immediate postwar experience of hunger and deprivation at home might have been (at least in material terms) overcome, for many families, and in the public sphere in West Germany, this problem continued to exist in the unresolved fates of the POWs interned in the Soviet Union. In fact, in Moeller’s words, this aspect of the German victim discourse “remained a national preoccupation” during the early 1950s.7 Throughout the early years of his chancellorship Adenauer was approached with frequent appeals to address the question of the missing POWs, among them a petition containing the signatures of over seven million German women pleading to bring the POWs home.8 German youths organized a “Freedom Run” (“Freiheitslauf”) from Berlin to Bonn during the annual “POW Remembrance Week” (“KriegsgefangenenGedenkwochen.”)9 In 1953, to remind the German public of the POW

4 5

6 7 8

9

Robert G. Moeller, “Remembering the War in a Nation of Victims,” 100. Moeller, “Remembering the War in a Nation of Victims,” 100. To quote another example of this process: the heroic image of the “rubble women” (Trümmerfrauen) was instrumental in creating a West German postwar identity during the time of the economic miracle. See for details: Elizabeth Heinemann, “The Hour of the Woman: Memories of Germany’s ‘Crisis Years’ and West German National Identity,” in The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949–1968, ed. Hanna Schissler (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2001), 47. Spicka, Selling the Economic Miracle, 166–8. Moeller, “Remembering the War in a Nation of Victims,” 96. Gerd Ruge, “Adenauer in Moskau 1955: Was war, was wurde, was bleibt?” in Adenauers Moskaubesuch 1955: Eine Reise im internationalen Kontext, ed. Helmut Altrichter (Bonn: Bouvier, 2007), 145. Ruge, “Adenauer in Moskau 1955,” 145.

150 Staging West German Democracy situation, the West German postal service issued stamps captioned “Remember our Prisoners” (“Gedenket unserer Gefangenen”) that refashioned the former Wehrmacht soldiers into victims through the use of imagery usually reserved for Holocaust depictions.10 Prior to his trip to Moscow, Adenauer received letters addressed to him personally from families of POWs with “concerns they wanted him to present to Soviet leaders.”11 In this climate of uncertainty and worry, it is understandable that the release of the last remaining POWs was a huge political success and subsequent popular triumph for Adenauer, one that, as historian Werner Kilian argues, played an important role in the CDU/CSU coalition gaining an absolute majority of 50.2 percent of votes in the 1957 Bundestag elections. Indeed, well into the 1970s, people in the Federal Republic best remembered Adenauer as the liberator of the prisoners.12 In order to assess the role that Meeting in the Kremlin played in this important memory work, the analyses of this chapter focus on how both visual language and voice-over narration in the film are used to create a decidedly positive image of Adenauer as steadfast Cold War diplomat. The emerging narrative pattern, in the following referred to as “Cold Warrior discourse,” posits Adenauer as a vital player in an unbreakable Western alliance against the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. This stance explicitly includes the political regime of the German Democratic Republic. Along the lines of the Cold Warrior discourse, Meeting in the Kremlin portrays Adenauer as a tough negotiator with the Soviets during his stay in Moscow. These explicit declarations of loyalty to the Western Cold War alliance were apparently deemed necessary by the Federal Press Office, since Adenauer had made the concession to open diplomatic relations with Moscow during his visit, a decision that could have been interpreted as cozying up to Moscow by critical parties. Hence, Adenauer then “demonstratively” neglected these.13 In the words of Werner Kilian, “after his breakneck adventure in Moscow, the chancellor, as it is believed, thought it necessary to return again to safer ground, to the base of the regular, joint policy of the alliance against the Soviets.”14

10 Moeller, “Remembering the War in a Nation of Victims,” 97. 11 Robert G. Moeller, War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 93. 12 Werner Kilian, Adenauers Reise nach Moskau (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2005), 11–12. 13 Kilian, Adenauers Reise nach Moskau, 308–9. 14 Kilian, Adenauers Reise nach Moskau, 309–10.

Cold Warrior Discourse 151 As will be shown, the film’s producers also made a point to include several symbolisms and rhetorical figures that allude to a struggle with the old Bolshevik and present communist enemy in which diplomacy acts as a stand-in for actual fighting. Another central aspect to the Cold Warrior discourse is a focus on Christian symbolisms, which serve a variety of functions in the film. They convey a criticism of the “godlessness” of Communism, and they underline Adenauer’s image as a Western leader holding the moral high ground over his communist opponents. Christian references and symbolisms also play a key role in the collective working through the experience of the Second World War during the scenes filmed during the POWs return to Germany at the Herleshausen reception center subsequent to Adenauer’s visit. In short, in assuming the image of a Christian leader and redeemer figure on terms as discussed in chapter one, Adenauer serves in the film to narrativize a “triumph over evil.”15 In that sense, Adenauer serves as an ethical corrective to the ostensible abominations of Soviet-style Communism. Through what the film describes as his “heroic” act of freeing Germany’s “lost sons,” Adenauer also “redeems” the West German family by enabling them to work through the traumatic Third Reich and postwar past. The narrative center of the film—Adenauer’s return from the Soviet Union to Bonn/Wahn airport, during which the mother of a POW kisses Adenauer’s hand in a respectful gesture of gratitude that has become iconic in German collective memory—will be crucial for the film’s endeavor of performing a healing act on the West German collective memory. This sequence will be analyzed in terms of its symbolic significance as a homecoming of Adenauer as the West German “hero-father.” In order to establish an effective connection to the audience, the Deutsche Wochenschau PR films consistently portray Adenauer as a paternalistic figure, and Meeting in the Kremlin is a case in point: here, the “father of the nation” Adenauer quite literally reunites the West German “national family.” Robert G. Moeller, who analyzed West German press coverage of the events surrounding Adenauer’s state visit, has demonstrated that this image also transcended the realm of newsreels and extended to Adenauer’s perception by the Federal Republic’s broader public: “[A]s the POWs returned in 1955, this forceful political leader, the ‘good father of Germany,’ stood at the head of the national family.”16 In light of this personality cult, and considering 15 Sven Glawion, Elahe Haschemi, and Jana Husman-Kastein, “Einleitung,” in Erlöser: Figurationen Männlicher Hegemonie, by Sven Glawion, Elahe Haschemi, and Jana Husman-Kastein, Transcript Verlag (Bielefeld, 2007), 13. 16 Moeller, War Stories, 89.

152 Staging West German Democracy the letters from West Germans about the POWs that were addressed to him as a “loving father,” Adenauer even assumed the position of “father of our prisoners of war” in the public eye.17 It is precisely along the lines of Uta Schwarz’s concept of Adenauer as “projection screen” for collective West German “unfulfilled wishes and yearnings of many” that Meeting in the Kremlin employs Adenauer’s public image in order to perform compensatory work on the West German collective memory.18 To exploit Adenauer’s diplomatic success for political PR purposes, Meeting in the Kremlin stages Adenauer’s departure in terms of a risky “expedition” into unfamiliar and hostile territory in Cold War terms, with the concrete objective to bring the POWs home. In Adenauer’s own words prior to departure, he characterized the journey as “a trip into the unknown,”19 in which the result could be far less anticipated than when compared to the visits to the US or France. The film then goes to great length to show how, through what it describes as Adenauer’s experience and political skill, the prisoners are released. This establishes a chain of cause and effect. The successful return of the “hero-father” in the film leads directly to a vivid rendering of the result of Adenauer’s diplomatic skill, the emotional reunion of the POWs with their families. While the Soviets, unbeknownst to Adenauer and his delegation at the time, were already discussing the POWs’ release internally, Adenauer, on the other hand, prepared to travel to Moscow with the public expectation of finally achieving a breakthrough in the pressing POW question, while little was known about the diplomatic chances to do so.20 To complicate matters further, as Kilian has demonstrated, Adenauer’s delegation was deeply divided over the idea of potentially

17 Moeller, War Stories, 92–4. 18 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 352–53. 19 “Also werden wir – verstehen Sie mich jetzt richtig – eine ‘Fahrt ins Blaue’ antreten müssen.” Qtd. in Kilian, Adenauers Reise nach Moskau, 11. 20 While most contemporary West German news reports, including Meeting in the Kremlin, portrayed the release of the POWs as the sole product of Adenauer’s diplomatic and political skill, it is now known that the Soviet Union had already planned to use the release of the POWs as leverage on Adenauer to achieve their goal of diplomatic relations with West Germany. Kilian, Adenauers Reise nach Moskau, 13. This, however, was not known to Adenauer and his delegation; they had no conclusive intelligence about Soviet intentions regarding the POWs since the Soviet Union, during the months leading up to the state visit, had only conducted negotiations with the German Democratic Republic leadership in secret. Kilian, Adenauers Reise nach Moskau, 82–5; Ruge, “Adenauer in Moskau 1955,” 136.

Cold Warrior Discourse 153 exchanging the POWs for diplomatic relations.21 The film’s coverage of the Moscow visit capitalizes on the factor of the “unknown” and portrays the negotiations as a true diplomatic cliffhanger, skillfully navigated by Adenauer. Represented as solely responsible for turning trauma into triumph, Adenauer towers as the heroic figure in Meeting in the Kremlin.

Planning the Report on a “Trip into the Unknown” Work on turning the raw footage of Adenauer’s trip into a PR film started the day after Adenauer’s return, on September 15, 1955, when the Press Office started the project under the working title Contact with Moscow (Kontakt mit Moskau).22 Whether the Press Office had already planned the film before Adenauer’s trip is unclear according to the archival records.23 A memo from the Press Office states that the Deutsche Wochenschau had also entered an agreement with the Soviet newsreel service to exchange material, a common practice these days, which resulted in a “great wealth of available image material.” At this early stage, the film’s main narrative scope was basically set and comprised four main sequences with an overall length of about 45 mins: an overview on the negotiations interspersed with sights and sounds of Moscow city life; coverage of the return from Moscow to Bonn/Wahn airport; Adenauer’s following declaration of government in the Bundestag; and, for its ending, images of the returning POWs. The memo further specified that the preliminary budget was DM 50,000, it

21 The leadership of Adenauer’s new Foreign Office, most importantly Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano, had serious reservations about the new diplomatic presence of the Federal Republic alongside that of the German Democratic Republic in Moscow. The two most important concerns were that such a presence would result in the Federal Republic’s de facto acknowledgement of Germany’s eastern border, and that it would threaten the West German doctrine of sole representation, the claim that the Federal Republic alone represented the German people. Kilian, Adenauers Reise nach Moskau, 45–6. Even after the offer to exchange the POWs for diplomatic relations had been made by the Soviets and accepted by Adenauer after days of difficult negotiations, the representatives of the Foreign Office still insisted on postponing diplomatic relations, continuing the negotiations on a lower level, and demanding a written agreement about the POWs’ release. The Soviets, on the other hand, declined to give such a written promise. Kilian, Adenauers Reise nach Moskau, 171, 176. 22 Memo by Betz (FPO) “Aufzeichnung betreffend die Herstellung eines Films über die Moskauer Konferenz vom 9. bis 13. September 1955 mit dem Arbeitstitel ‘Kontakt mit Moskau,’ ” October 12, 1955 (BArchiv B145/4628). 23 Since the newsreel company would cover the trip in any case for its Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel, this method was without problems. Typically, cameramen were assigned to shoot extra footage that could later be worked into a PR film.

154 Staging West German Democracy envisioned four 35mm and sixty 16mm copies, and a completion date of November 30, 1955.24 By mid-October 1955, the Deutsche Wochenschau had shot footage from the first POW transports back to West Germany that were initiated by the Soviets after Adenauer’s trip and had assembled a rough cut of the film. At this point, work on the commentary was already under way, now with an anticipated completion date of October 25.25 By the end of October, the film carried its final title Meeting in the Kremlin.26 Compared to the film’s working title Contact with Moscow, the German for “meeting,” “Begegnung,” now introduced a subtle undertone of confrontation over the original, very neutral wording of “Kontakt” (contact). While “Begegnung” in general just means “meeting” in German, in sports and military language, this connotes a contest between two opponents. It was, after all, important that the Press Office avoided the impression that the Federal Republic got too close to the Cold War enemy in human terms. Based on the archival records, the film took almost sixteen months to finish. This is by far the longest production time of all PR films analyzed in this book. The fact that Meeting in the Kremlin went through multiple re-editing stages and its overall production length suggest that it was a problematic project for the Press Office. Its complicated production history reflects the film’s political stakes. Upon inspection by the Press Office in late October of 1955, the film’s first rough cut met with criticism for reporting too positively on Moscow as a city.27 A memo by the Press Office’s Head of Film Division Kurt Betz of October 26, 1955 claims it would be “necessary to delete certain shots from the film’s first part which could lead to an overly positive assessment of the architectural impression rendered by Moscow.”28 Apparently, there were concerns that the viewers could be too impressed by Moscow’s metropolitan flair and overall appearance, which would run counter to the film’s intended purpose to render the Soviet Union the Cold War enemy and to

24 “Bei der grossen Fülle des vorhandenen Bildmaterials und der Bedeutung und dem Echo, das dieser Besuch in der deutschen Öffentlichkeit gefunden hat, ist die Länge des Films aud [sic!] 1200 m (45 Minuten Vorführzeit) angelegt.” Memo by Betz (FPO) “Aufzeichnung betreffend die Herstellung eines Films über die Moskauer Konferenz vom 9. bis 13. September 1955 mit dem Arbeitstitel ‘Kontakt mit Moskau,’ ” October 12, 1955 (BArchiv B145/4628). 25 Memo by Betz (FPO), October 12, 1955 (BArchiv B145/4628). 26 Memo by Betz (FPO), October 26, 1955 (BArchiv B145/4628). 27 Memo by Betz (FPO), October 26, 1955 (BArchiv B145/4628). 28 “Nach eingehedem Studium des Stummschnitts des Moskau-Films erscheint es erforderlich, aus dem ersten Teil des Films gewisse Einstellungen herauszunehmen, die zu einer Überbewertung des baulichen Eindrucks von Moskau führen könnten.” Memo by Betz (FPO), October 26, 1955 (BArchiv B145/4628).

Cold Warrior Discourse 155 emphasize the inferiority of the communist system. This triggered major revisions of the film in the winter of 1955 and spring of 1956.29 There is also archival evidence that it was re-edited for a second time in the fall of 1956 for an additional DM 16,000. Edits involved a shortening of the film, the implementation of new archival footage, and “a completely new audio dubbing.”30 The film was finally finished in January 1957.31 The first re-editing process resulted in the film’s copy analyzed here, as the film’s later edits are unavailable in the archives.32 There is, however, archival documentation on later edits of Meeting in the Kremlin. These records suggest that the Press Office worked in particular on counteracting a too positive impression of Moscow. In December of 1955, Betz personally ordered archival footage depicting “streets in industry quarters and workers’ quarters in Moscow” from the Deutsche Wochenschau’s competitor company Deutsche Filmwochenschau GmbH.33 In April of 1956, Betz contacted Karl Bringmann, the Editor in Chief of the Catholic News Service (Katholische Nachrichtenagentur), for further discrediting information about everyday life in Moscow, in particular the state of Moscow’s churches.34 Bringmann had authored a brochure with a Christian, and decidedly anti-communist leaning about the topic, entitled Moscow: Myth of Power (Moskau, Mythos der Macht).35 This brochure was sent to Betz and used in the editing of the film.36 The theme of religion in the Soviet Union was already a topic in the film’s first finished version,

29 “Im April teilten Sie mir fernmündlich mit, dass der Film über die Moskaureise des Bundeskanzlers zur Zeit überarbeitet und neu geschnitten werde [. . .].” Letter by Patzig (Deutscher Industrie- und Handelstag) to Betz (FPO), May 7, 1956 (BArchiv B145/4628). 30 Letter by DW to Thiel (Dt. Reportagefilm), n.d. (BArchiv B145/4628). 31 Letter by DW to Betz (FPO), January 11, 1957 (BArchiv B145/4628). 32 Neither the Deutsche Wochenschau Archive Hamburg where I retrieved my copy in 2012, nor the German Federal Archive, which now has the film available for streaming online have a newer version than the one analyzed here. The Deutsche Wochenschau files on the film simply state “1956” as the film’s production date. On the German Federal Archive website, the film is marked as produced on January 1, 1956. 33 Betz ordered shots of “Strassen von Industrievierteln und Volksvierteln in Moskau,“ as the original German went. Letter by Deutsche Filmwochenschau GMBH Blick in die Welt to Betz (FPO), December 14, 1955 (BArchiv B145/4628). The Deutsche Filmwochenschau produced the newsreel Blick in die Welt (Glance into the World). 34 Letter by Karl Bringmann to Betz (FPO), April 10, 1956 (BArchiv B145/4628). 35 Karl Bringmann, Moskau, Mythos der Macht (Cologne: Unitas Verlagsgesellschaft, 1955). 36 The brochure is present in the files of the German Federal Archive on the film (BArchiv B145/4628).

156 Staging West German Democracy which includes a scene of Adenauer during his regular Sunday prayer in a Moscow church. This posits Adenauer as a representative of the occidental Christian culture, an impression used in the film to underline its critique of the atheist communist system. Among other problematic aspects, the film’s documentation of Adenauer’s reception with the highest military honors as an official guest of state in Moscow put the Press Office under pressure to counteract the impression of a new understanding between the Soviet Union and the Federal Republic. This could be perceived as a threat to the Western anti-communist alliance by the Federal Republic’s allies. Therefore, during the film’s re-editing stage, the Press Office decided on a test screening. Unsure of the film’s direction and value, the agency planned to screen an early version of Meeting in the Kremlin for an exclusive, invitation-only-audience at the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Deutscher Industrie- und Handelstag) in early January of 1956.37 There is no record of the chamber’s feedback on the film, but much to the Press Office’s chagrin, this event leaked to the press, prompting a highly critical article in the Neckar-Echo, asking questions about who ordered the “secret film,” who financed it, and why the film was not shown publicly.38 The “secret screening” that apparently took place to test the film’s effect on the Federal Republic’s captains of industry, now created a climate of suspicion about the film and furthered its negative image even before it was released. While a too friendly portrayal of the Soviets may have been a main concern, the Foreign Office apparently feared as well that the film could interfere with the POWs’ safe return from the Soviet Union due to unspecified reasons. In January 1956, internal correspondence at the Press Office reported that Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano had decided to confine the film to private screenings only, “so that it could not provide a pretense for an interference with the POW operation.”39 Based on the correspondence between the Press Office and the Deutsche Wochenschau, it is impossible to determine whether Meeting in the Kremlin was in fact held back in order not to interfere with the return of the POWs. The analysis below makes clear that at least in its original version, the film did not portray the Soviet leadership very negatively,

37 Confidential memo “Aus PPP Nr.4” (FPO), January 5, 1956 (BArchiv B145/ 4628). 38 “’Begegnung in Moskau’ ” läuft als Geheimsache,” Neckar-Echo, n.d. 39 “Der Film ‘Begegnung im Kreml’ wird zunächst nur in geschlossenen Veranstaltungen gezeigt, damit er keinen Vorwand für eine evtl. Störung der Kriegsgefangenen-Aktion abgeben kann. Herr Dr. Dvorak hat dies mit dem Herrn Bundesminister der Auswärtigen vereinbart.“ Memo by Bruno Six (FPO) for Forschbach (FPO), January 16, 1956 (BArchiv B145/4628).

Cold Warrior Discourse 157 but on surprisingly neutral terms. If one takes into account the timeframe of the POW transports, it seems more likely that the Federal Press Office was simply struggling to find the right tone for the film. Only this would explain the film’s continued re-editing all throughout 1956, even though the last transport of the POWs had already reached German soil on January 16, 1956.40 Whether his concerns concerning the ongoing release of the POWs from the Soviet Union were genuine or not, von Brentano seemed to share the Press Office’s doubts about the film’s PR value. In February of 1956, he suggested a further “focus group” screening by proposing “for now to show the film again to a circle of about twelve journalists, and to subsequently, in a conversation, to listen to these gentlemen’s opinions.”41 While the Adenauer administration held the film back, the CDU/ CSU party, several pro-government interest groups, and journalists showed lively interest in the film. This must have been at least partly stimulated by the Press Office’s silence about the film to the public. As early as November 1955, prior to his January 1956 decision to confine the film to private screenings, even von Brentano’s office had unsuccessfully asked for a copy of Meeting in the Kremlin for a “special deployment” in von Brentano’s constituency.42 Already in November 1955, the CDU’s Bavarian CSU sister party had asked for ten copies for “civic education, especially within [. . .] communal Junge Union organizations, and our organizations in the pre-political realm.”43 Similarly in November 1955, the anti-communist propaganda organization the People’s Association for Peace and Freedom (Volksbund für Frieden und Freiheit E.V.) had asked the Press Office for a copy.44 In January 1956, the Board of

40 Helmut Schmidt, “Ankunft der Spätheimkehrer aus sowjetischer Kriegsgefangenenschaft” (manuscript, Gedenkstätte Herleshausen, 2006), http://www.herleshausen.de/Spaet/Spheimk.pdf 41 “Der Herr Bundesminister des Auswärtigen hat angeregt, den Film zunächst noch einmal vor einem Kreis von ca. 12 Journalisten vorzuführen und im Anschluß daran in einem Gespräch die Meinung dieser Herren zu hören.” Memo (FPO) February 10, 1956 (BArchiv B145/4628). 42 Letter by Hildenbeutel (Foreign Office) to Betz (FPO), December 19, 1955 (BArchiv B145/4628). 43 “Für die staatsbürgerliche Arbeit, vor allem meiner Kreisverbände der Jungen Union und unserer Organisationen im vorpolitischen Raum wäre ich Ihnen sehr dankbar, wenn Sie mir für eine kürzere oder längere Zeitdauer etwa 10 Kopien dieses Schmalfilms zur Verfügung stellen könnten.” Letter by Zimmermann (CSU Head Office) to Betz (FPO), November 24, 1955 (BArchiv B145/4628). 44 Letter by Cramer (Antikommunistischer Volksbund für Frieden und Freiheit EV), November 2, 1955 (BArchiv B145/4628). According to Simone Derix, this was an anti-communist organization that worked for the CDU by helping orchestrate public events during state visits, by providing security personnel, and by spying on the West German communist party KPD. Derix, Bebilderte Politik, 237.

158 Staging West German Democracy Professional Journalists in Hesse (Verband der Berufsjournalisten in Hessen E.V.) planned to show the film during its general assembly,45 to which the Federal Press Office again reacted with its prepared reply concerning the POWs.46 In May 1956, the German Chambers of Commerce and Industry inquired about the state of the film’s re-editing and reported “several requests within the chamber.”47 As is the case with most Deutsche Wochenschau PR films, reliable data on screening and audience numbers are missing from the archives. Media historian Karl Friedrich Reimers argues that the film was “rarely” used by the Adenauer administration, and that “Konrad Adenauer himself is reported to have been very reserved towards this filmic situational report.”48 Reimers’s observations point to the above mentioned, potential fears within the Adenauer administration that an audience unfamiliar with the conventions of diplomatic protocol and international politics could misconstrue the film as a document of a West German–Soviet rapprochement that could potentially weaken the Western alliance. The scenes depicting everyday life in Moscow, which the Press Office saw as rendered too positively, seemed to lend the abstract Cold War enemy a human face. Considering the vehemence with which Adenauer worked to dispel any impression of a rapprochement after the visit, the film might have seemed as overall too “friendly” towards the Soviets to Adenauer and the decision makers within the Press Office and the Foreign Office. This would help explain the film’s circulation in modest numbers among the general public, and its primary distribution for political education and cultural ambassadorship: After about two years, starting in Winter 1957/8 the film was used more often and more decidedly in the realm of political education, also internationally (for example by the Bund Europäischer Jugend/Junge Europäisische Föderalisten in der Europa-Union). The typical outlet for this documentary film were predominantly

45 Letter by Robert Mösinger (Verband der Berufsjournalisten in Hessen E.V.) to FPO, January 20, 1956 (BArchiv B145/4628). 46 Letter by Six (FPO) to the Verband Berufsjournalisten in Hessen E.V., February 3, 1956 (BArchiv B145/4628). 47 “Falls der Film in seiner neuen Form inzwischen fertiggestellt worden sein sollte, wären wir Ihnen sehr zu Dank verbunden, wenn Sie uns die Bedingungen der Entleihung mitteilen könnten, da bei uns mehrere Anfragen von Kammerseite nach diesem Film vorliegen.” Letter by Patzing (Deutscher Industrie- und Handelstag) to Betz (FPO), May 7, 1956 (BArchiv B145/4628). 48 Reimers, “ ‘Begegnung Im Kreml,’ ” 167.

Cold Warrior Discourse 159 the [. . .] Landesfilmdienste, which reached a diverse audience through their broad focus on youth- and adult education.49 The audience described by Reimers, it is important to note, was also ideally suited as addressees of what this chapter identifies as the film’s desired long-term effect: to provide West Germans with a symbolic closure to the lingering POW question. To achieve this goal, the film re-contextualizes visual tropes and imagery that its audience was already familiar with from the media and which in 1956 had already become part of collective memory. By the time the film had been finished, dramatic, emotionally rousing impressions of the return of the last POWs had already been widely disseminated in contemporary newspapers, magazines, and even books.50 Even more importantly, the audience recognized many of the film’s most memorable visuals from regular newsreel reporting. The year that Meeting in the Kremlin was made, marks the pinnacle of the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau’s popularity with moviegoers, with its distribution network reaching around 9.4 million people per week.51 The events and images of Adenauer’s trip to Moscow and the homecoming of the POWs were well known in 1956. According to Reimers, due to their ubiquity, viewers could easily identify with the re-contextualized images presented in Meeting in the Kremlin and relate them to a “collective memory”: “Images that invite situative, or even existential identification on part of the viewer easily find the better places in memory.”52 By attaching its political and symbolic message to well-known images deeply anchored in the West German collective memory, the memory work embedded in Meeting in the Kremlin became particularly effective. In the narrative logic of the film, this process revolves around Konrad Adenauer alone.

The “Hero-Father” Returns with the “Lost Sons”: The Symbolic Language of Meeting in the Kremlin Divided into five major parts, Meeting in the Kremlin chronicles the delegation’s departure from Bonn/Wahn airport, the difficult 49 Reimers, “’Begegnung im Kreml,’ ” 167. 50 See in this context Moeller’s analysis of West German press coverage and collective memory concerning Adenauer’s trip to Moscow and the release of the POWs. Moeller, War Stories, 88–122; “Moskau/Kanzler-Besuch: Lesen Sie Karl Marx,” Der Spiegel, 39/1955, http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-31971227. html; Wilhelm Backhaus, Begegnung im Kreml: So wurden die Gefangenen befreit (West Berlin: Ullstein, 1955). 51 Paschen, “Vor der ‘Tagesschau’ gab es die ‘Wochenschau,’ ” 30. This number combines the viewers of the two NDW productions Neue Deutsche Wochenschau and Welt im Bild. 52 Reimers, “’Begegnung im Kreml,’ ” 167.

160 Staging West German Democracy negotiations in Moscow, the subsequent return of Adenauer’s successful delegation to Bonn, the debate about diplomatic relations with the USSR in the German parliament, and the arrival of Germany’s last POWs in the Friedland reception center in West Germany. The narrative pattern of Meeting in the Kremlin can aptly be conceived of in form of a “hero-father narrative”: Adenauer as “father of the nation” prevails in difficult negotiations during the state visit, and he performs a healing work on the collective memory of the West German “national family” by returning home with Germany’s long lost “sons.” This homecoming is intended to visually supersede and ultimately overwrite the images of German soldiers overrun, defeated, and taken prisoner by the Red Army, only to later return home in tatters. It serves as a symbolic corrective for the traumatic defeat of the generation of Germany’s “sons” ten years earlier. By thus overwriting past experiences in the collective memory of the Second World War, and by enabling Germans to welcome the last remaining POWs home, Adenauer’s actions in the film provided symbolic closure to that traumatic past. During its reporting on the departure of Adenauer’s delegation from Bonn/Wahn airport, Meeting in the Kremlin portrays Adenauer as the undisputed center of attention, surrounded by a large and enthusiastic

Figure 4.1 Adenauer’s delegation leaving for Moscow. Meeting in the Kremlin (Begegnung im Kreml, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1956). German Federal Archive.

Cold Warrior Discourse 161 crowd. This underscores the precariousness of his trip. After Adenauer has ascended the stairs to the aircraft, he can be seen to turn around to greet the crowd one last time, while an anxious, “national family” waves goodbye to the chancellor. The commentary contributes to the impression that the entire “West” wished Adenauer good luck: “This waving expressed the countless hopeful wishes placed into this flight by the Western world” (1:28).53 Prior to the problematic negotiations with the Cold War enemy, this statement unmistakably underlines the Federal Republic’s membership of the military and cultural West. Several shots make clear that Adenauer is traveling on one of two newly purchased Lufthansa Super Constellation aircraft. The film, however, omits the fact that it is piloted by a US crew since the aircraft were still so new that German Lufthansa pilots were not certified to fly them yet.54 On screen, however, the ultra-modern West German aircraft, about to take off for Moscow, was a confident and powerful symbol of the country’s newly earned political sovereignty and newfound economic prosperity. After all, Lufthansa had only been allowed to travel internationally very shortly before Adenauer’s trip, in April of 1955, as a result of the Bonn–Paris Conventions.55 The film further underlines the newly-won political sovereignty of the Federal Republic by its detailed reporting on the reception of Adenauer’s delegation at Moscow airport. This included full military honors and the playing of the West German national anthem through a Soviet honor formation, which the film renders in great detail over almost four minutes (1:39–5:20). The journalist Gerd Ruge, who accompanied Adenauer’s delegation to Moscow, remembers how stunned the West Germans were at the reception in Moscow: “So I stood there and watched Adenauer’s arrival, how he walked along the honorary formation, how the Deutschlandlied was played, which after all was almost inconceivable for us in Moscow.”56 The sights and sounds of this extraordinary reception by a nation that had suffered terribly at the hands of the German Wehrmacht must have triggered strong emotions among the visitors in Moscow, and within the film’s audience. At the same time, the military honors gave the West German audience

53 “Mit diesem Winken waren die zahllosen Hoffnungswünsche, die die gesamte westliche Welt in diesen Flug setzte, verbunden.” Meeting in the Kremlin, Deutsche Wochenschau 1956, 1:28. 54 Kilian, Adenauers Reise nach Moskau, 112. 55 Kilian, Adenauers Reise nach Moskau, 53. 56 “Ich stand also dort und sah, wie Adenauer ankam, wie er die Front abschritt, wie das Deutschlandlied erklang, was für uns doch fast unvorstellbar war in Moskau.” Ruge, “Adenauer in Moskau 1955,” 120.

162 Staging West German Democracy the impression that they were respected as a sovereign nation by their former and current opponent, who in 1945 had dealt them a decisive and catastrophic defeat. In Meeting in the Kremlin, the trademark black “Adenauer-Mercedes” plays an important role in creating and emphasizing the Federal Republic’s image as economic power that has shed its militaristic past. In a telling sequence, Adenauer is shown being chauffeured to his hotel in his Mercedes (5:18), what the commentary emphasizes as “his own car.” For the audience, the fact that Adenauer has “his own” Mercedes on the ground some 2,500 kilometers away from Bonn, underlines the Federal Republic’s recently obtained diplomatic sovereignty on similar terms as the reference to the Lufthansa Super Constellation aircraft. A short, ensuing scene depicts Moscow schoolboys admiring the Mercedes star, a symbol of the West German economic miracle.57 These visual and aural references during the description of his arrival underline that Adenauer, and through him West Germany as a respected and sovereign nation, has arrived back on the world stage of politics. The second part of the film, set during the negotiations in Moscow, juxtaposes touristic sights and sounds of the city rendered in surprisingly neutral fashion with sequences about the political negotiations. These images account for a significant change in the traditional depiction of the Soviet Union as “Bolshevik empire,”58 especially if compared to the contemporary CDU or Third Reich propaganda against the Soviet Union. While this effect will be partially undone again during the film’s depiction of the political negotiations, the ambiguity regarding Moscow in the film’s early 1956 version is an indication of how the Press Office struggled to find a coherently critical, political line about the film. Long shots of Moscow’s skyline with images of Stalinist architecture like the Foreign Ministry (8:22), and street shots of busy street corners (8:27) reveal a fascination with Moscow’s urban, metropolitan flair. Aesthetically pleasing shots of the busy subway stations admire the technological achievement, such as of the long escalators leading down to the trains (8:29), together with the admiring commentary “The subway stations seem like palaces, deep beneath the earth. For the workers, as it were, they are the living room of their state” (8:34).59 All

57 According to Moeller, the German news magazine Der Stern “celebrated” the car as a “genuine tourist attraction in Moscow, carrying not only West German political leaders but dreams of West German economic prosperity as well.” Moeller, War Stories, 97. 58 Reimers, “’Begegnung im Kreml,’ ” 182. 59 “Die Stationen gleichen Palästen, tief unter der Erde. Sie sind für die Arbeiter gleichsam die gute Stube ihres Staates.” Meeting in the Kremlin, 8:34.

Cold Warrior Discourse 163 in all, these scenes display an engaged, journalistic tone that would suit any report from any city in the world. Especially these neutrallyrendered, local color scenes must have raised alarm about the film’s effect on a general audience in the Press Office and caused it to include less flattering material on Moscow in later versions of the film. To be sure, Meeting in the Kremlin does not paint a unanimously positive picture of the city. For example, the film contains a short section about the situation of Moscow’s numerous churches under Communism, with the commentary explaining that today there are no services held in them and that many of them were turned into museums (9:16–9:30). To the CDU’s traditional, churchgoing audience, this must have been offensive and a violation of the Federal Republic’s principles of religious freedom. Interestingly, the fate of the POWs is not mentioned until fifteen minutes into the film, when the commentary’s seemingly neutral tone suddenly changes back to standard Western partiality. During the film’s reporting on the delegation’s second meeting with the Soviets, the commentary mentions that “everyone was aware of the seriousness of the atmosphere” (14:12),60 thus preparing the audience for a change of tone in the film. Highlighting a deadlock in the negotiations, the film then goes on to describe an alleged shouting match between Adenauer and Khrushchev when the latter mentions German war guilt. Adenauer’s defiant words “terrible things also happened in Germany” (14:33),61 reported by the voice-over, introduce a segment that renders Germans only as victims of the Second World War. They are amplified by stock newsreel footage of the Red Army’s onslaught on Germany at the end of the Second World War, culminating in staged scenes of a lone woman standing in the rubble and of a mother and daughter lighting a candle for their missing husband/father (16:15). Adenauer’s words, placed in prominent position at the beginning of a two-minute-long review of the last ten years’ Cold War events in Germany, took the words out of the everyday West Germans’ mouths. In his capacity as “projection screen” for West German anxieties, hopes, and wishes,62 Adenauer had just told the Soviet delegation what the average German felt. West Germans during the 1950s still emphasized a discourse of victimhood and largely displaced a narrative of German perpetration in the Second World War. Meeting in the Kremlin in the following caters to this sentiment by a review of Cold War events that explicitly addresses 60 “Die Konferenztüren blieben verschlossen. Aber nach den Grundsatzerklärungen der ersten Zusammenkunft wusste alle Welt mit welchem Ernst die Atmosphäre angefüllt war.” Meeting in the Kremlin, 14:12. 61 “Auch in Deutschland ist Furchtbares geschehen.” Meeting in the Kremlin, 14:33. 62 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 360.

164 Staging West German Democracy the plight of the German population, refugees, and POWs, while ignoring the atrocities of the Wehrmacht and SS in the East. Precisely these images of human suffering, grieving families, destroyed cities, and the despairing POWs will be symbolically corrected by the staging of Adenauer’s homecoming later in the film. A montage of newsreel footage details the waypoints of the end of the Second World War in Germany and the escalating East–West division in the war’s aftermath, such as the Russian tanks in Berlin, the Berlin airlift of 1948/9 and the June 17 uprisings of 1953, from a Western point of view. A short scene on German POWs in barracks is commented “The concern about our prisoners – a steady exhortation for the entire world” (15:58).63 This for the first time mentions the POWs as a diplomatic objective, while the strategic omission that these men once were imprisoned as invaders heightens their victim status. The commentary places the responsibility for the growing political alienation solely on Soviet shoulders and makes the argument that Adenauer’s policies of anti-Communism and Western integration were the only feasible approach to counteract the ostensibly hostile stance of the Soviet Union towards West Germany: “Alliance systems in the Western world as a result of this policy” (15:06).64 In thus conflating the Second World War with the Cold War, this sequence emphasizes the Soviet Union’s status as (West) Germany’s enemy both in the past and in the present.65 True to the general characteristic of the Deutsche Wochenschau’s newsreel reporting on these issues, which tended to omit German guilt and portrayed the German POWs not as former soldiers, but solely as “victims of Soviet oppression,”66 this strategy effectively displaces the discourse of German perpetration and replaces it with a continuous narrative of German suffering at the hands of the Soviets.67

63 “Die Sorge um unsere Gefangenen – ein steter Mahnruf für die ganze Welt.” Meeting in the Kremlin, 15:58. 64 “Bündnissysteme der westlichen Welt als Folge dieser Politik.” Meeting in the Kremlin, 15:06. 65 The characterization of the Soviet Union as both an “old and new enemy” also appears in Moeller’s examination of contemporary press reporting on the POWs’ homecoming, some of which recast Hitler’s soldiers as defenders against Cold War Communism. Moeller, War Stories, 113. 66 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 197. 67 From a production standpoint, this sequence illustrates well the Deutsche Wochenschau’s suitability to create PR films on political issues for the Federal Press Office: the review was entirely pasted together from archival material that had been shot for the regular newsreels. The Deutsche Wochenschau’s vast archive on the historical events of the last years made such sequences very easy to produce.

Cold Warrior Discourse 165 After the earlier commentary pointing out that most of the churches in the Soviet Union were either destroyed or turned into museums, a short sequence of the devout Catholic Adenauer praying at the St. Ludwig’s church in Moscow emphasizes that Adenauer deliberately insisted on attending a church service, although the Soviet Union is officially an anti-religious country: “In spite of the locale, the federal chancellor did not abstain from his usual Sunday church service” (17:37).68 This underlines Adenauer’s opposition to the Soviet Union on cultural and ideological terms. It emphasizes the image of Adenauer as “Christian soldier” and juxtaposes this evocative visual trope of masculine leadership with the secularist “godlessness” of Communism. In this instance, religion is used as an exclusionary tool that separates good from evil, right from wrong, and occidental Christian culture from what the Nazis and the CDU quite similarly characterized as the “Asianness” of Communism.69 This perspective on Communism again conflates the conflict with the Soviet Union during the Second World War with Adenauer’s diplomatic struggle of 1955. The image of Adenauer’s “prayer before battle” (the negotiations with the Soviets) evokes the old Prussian military motto “God with us” (Gott mit uns), which Wehrmacht soldiers wore on their belt buckles during the Second World War, and which the Bundeswehr again adopted for its soldiers in 1955 until it was abolished in 1962.70 In thus establishing a symbolic continuity from Prussia until the film’s present, the film reiterates its overall depiction of the German– Soviet negotiations as a confrontation with the old Bolshevik and present Cold War enemy. The historical fact that the wretched German POWs Adenauer was now fighting for once came as part of a ruthless invasion force that left millions dead in its wake is compartmentalized and cut off from the present humanitarian problem. By highlighting Adenauer’s Christian, moral high ground over the Soviet leaders, the film sets the stage for its presentation of the decisive part of the German–Soviet negotiations. Rendered in suspenseful

68 “Der Bundeskanzler ließ sich auch hier seinen gewohnten sonntäglichen Kirchgang nicht nehmen.” Meeting in the Kremlin, 17:37. 69 I am referring here to a 1949 CDU election poster, entitled “No, therefore CDU” (Nein, darum CDU ), featuring a racist depiction of an Asian figure, painted in red, threatening to grasp Western Europe. “‘Nein, darum CDU’. Wahlplakat der CDU zur Bundestagswahl 1949,” Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, http://www.deutschedigitale-bibliothek.de/item/T5YE733M6EPDDYOGBFDL7F2GAEZR3HSC (accessed June 14, 2018). During the Third Reich, Goebbels had famously characterized the Soviets as “Asian hordes.” Cf. Wolfgang Benz, Geschichte des Dritten Reiches (C.H.Beck, 2000), 197. 70 I am grateful to one of my anonymous reviewers for bringing this to my attention.

166 Staging West German Democracy scenes that emphasize Adenauer’s diplomatic skill, Meeting in the Kremlin goes on to detail the successful resolution of the negotiation deadlock in scenes many of which have made into contemporary historical documentary films.71 While the political outcomes of the state visit were ultimately limited and of little effect on an international scale,72 in the West German public, Adenauer had scored a decisive political victory for all Germans with Khrushchev’s promise that the last remaining POWs would be returned. The remainder of the film capitalizes on this news, which triggered a tremendous wave of emotions in West Germany, both publicly and privately. Meeting in the Kremlin’s third segment opens with the return of Adenauer’s delegation to Germany, the news of the POWs’ release already having traveled ahead to Bonn. Focusing entirely on this humanitarian success, the film presents the arrival of the delegation at Bonn/Wahn airport in triumphant, yet serious tones that stress the impact of this diplomatic achievement on thousands of German families. Due to the visual parallelisms with the departure scene, this segment allows the film’s carefully constructed hero-father narrative—Adenauer travels to a “dangerous” place without knowing what to expect, he has to master various challenges and returns home victoriously with Germany’s lost sons—to come full circle. After images of the Lufthansa Super Constellation airplane announce the chancellor’s arrival, a medium shot crosscut then reveals the “West German family,” waving at the airplane and later at the emerging Adenauer. The crowd is characterized by the commentary as “a moved crowd” (24:50).73 The following medium long shot depicts Adenauer accompanied by a throng of aides and journalists, walking from the right of the frame (symbolically from the “East”), to the left (“West”), towards an array of microphones on the tarmac. Framed in a medium long shot, Adenauer then stands in front of the microphones, surrounded in a half circle by his delegation, journalists, and the welcoming party,

71 The cinematic rendering of these scenes, such as the legendary handshake between Adenauer and Bulganin at the Bolschoi theater, and the banquet in the Kremlin, during which the Soviets took the German delegation by surprise by suddenly agreeing to release the POWs, deserves further scholarly attention. For more information on these events and their political and symbolic implications see Kilian, Adenauers Reise nach Moskau; Ruge, “Adenauer in Moskau 1955.” For a very early account (1955) see Backhaus, Begegnung im Kreml. 72 Most importantly, there was no progress on the question of German reunification, diplomatic relations were neglected by Adenauer from the start, and Adenauer’s declaration that West Germany alone represented the German people remained unilateral. 73 “Eine bewegte Menschenmenge empfängt Dr. Adenauer.” Meeting in the Kremlin, 24:50.

Cold Warrior Discourse 167 leaving the view open for the cameras directly in front of him. A little girl with flowers curtsies while Adenauer awkwardly shakes her hand. The stage for the symbolic homecoming is set. While Vice Chancellor Franz Blücher thanks Adenauer for his efforts in the name of the German people, an emotional older woman clad in mourning approaches Adenauer from the left of the frame (“the West,” in this case “Germany”). She can clearly be identified as a “POW’s mother” by the inscription of an official photo of the event.74 The film then shows the woman fall to her knees before Adenauer and, in an apparent gesture of gratitude, to submissively kiss Adenauer’s hand (25:30). This highly evocative scene remains without comment (likely because of Blücher’s still ongoing words of gratitude to Adenauer), but is exploited on visual terms by a cut to a perspective from a second camera in the crowd (25:26). This shot depicts the woman’s features in medium close-up and thus lends a human face to the still ongoing

Figure 4.2 A POW’s mother gratefully kisses Adenauer’s hand after his successful return from Moscow. Meeting in the Kremlin. German Federal Archive.

74 BArchiv B145 Bild-P107546.

168 Staging West German Democracy suffering of the former German home front; a suffering now about to be remedied, the editing suggests, by Adenauer’s direct intervention. This act by a grieving woman provided the material for an iconic image that instantly cast Adenauer in the role of a paternalistic liberator of the prisoners. In the words of Ruge: “The image of an old woman, who kissed the chancellor’s hands out of gratitude that her son would return, symbolized the moment: The liberation of the POWs through Adenauer’s fearlessness and negotiation skills.”75 This scene, which cast him a hero who prevailed in the Soviet Union, instantly intertwined Adenauer’s Wochenschau screen persona with the return of the German POWs. The exploitation of the old woman in mourning for political PR purposes of course did not go unnoticed. For example, in its vitriolic reporting on the event, the government-critical magazine Der Spiegel mocked the scene as “Reception in Bonn with an old granny and emotional politicians.”76 On the other hand, Meeting in the Kremlin did its part to anchor this image, still today seen as a defining moment in Adenauer’s chancellorship, firmly in the West German collective memory. Adenauer’s description as a hero who “fought” for Germany in the Soviet Union during the film’s “hero’s welcome” at the airport is amplified by the film’s rendering of the negotiations as a confrontation between enemies. Thanking his delegation consisting of multiple political parties, the film shows Adenauer emphasizing the sense of unity that had prevailed during the negotiations in spite of differences in party politics during his address on the airfield: “We all stood there together, for our fatherland” (26:53).77 The German verb “stehen” used here in this context evokes soldiering, a tough struggle fending off the onslaught of a strong opponent. Indeed, in light of the recent World War and present Cold War hostilities, martial rhetoric relating to the state visit and its results was far from uncommon. The West German– Soviet negotiations were often characterized as a “struggle” (“Kampf”), as for example in Backhaus’s contemporary account.78 Sharing his personal experience of the state visit, Ruge’s recollections of the trip add a myth-like, time-transcending quality to the notion of “struggle”:

75 “Es gab gefühlsgeladene, rührende Szenen der Heimkehr und des Dankes an Adenauer. Jenes Bild einer alten Frau, die dem Kanzler als Dank für die Rückkehr ihres Sohnes die Hände küsst, symbolisierte den Augenblick: Die Befreiung der Kriegsgefangenen durch die Furchtlosigkeit und Verhandlungsstärke Adenauers.” Ruge, “Adenauer in Moskau 1955,” 142. 76 “Empfang in Bonn mit altem Mütterchen und gerührten Politikern.” “KanzlerBesuch.” 77 “Wir alle haben dort gemeinsam gestanden, für unser Vaterland.” Meeting in the Kremlin, 26:53. 78 Backhaus, Begegnung im Kreml, 29.

Cold Warrior Discourse 169 Several years after the event, a colleague had once told me that this trip had almost had the air of a continuation of the Nibelungs saga. In a way, as in the legend, this would show a journey of the old federal chancellor who struggles to free the German prisoners under terrible conditions, in that way similar to the trip to the Hun king Etzel in the Saga of the Nibelungs – only that this time, there was of course a happy end. Adenauer fights to liberate the prisoners in the capital of the Soviet Union. After all, this was what the Germans remembered from these negotiations first and foremost, this was what moved them.79 Considering these conflict and even war-laden associations about the negotiations, it is hard to conceive that Adenauer’s choice of words about the struggle against the Soviet enemy of 1955, a mere ten years after cessation of hostilities, would fail to remind West Germans of the Wehrmacht’s fight against the Red Army. This time, however, the film provides images of Germans in triumph: Adenauer’s words returning from Moscow in 1955 emphasize that the German front had held together this time, and that its unchanged enemy had been kept in check. Besides its exploitation for PR purposes in the film, the old woman’s kissing of Adenauer’s hand speaks volumes about generational and gender relations at the time, and this scene has a doubly symbolic dimension. Adenauer and the woman perform a “family reunion” on two levels. Firstly, considering that the woman is about Adenauer’s age, this moment can be read as the parent generation of the imprisoned Wehrmacht soldiers performing a symbolic homecoming of the “herofather,” an image intended to displace the traumatic collective memory of their sons’ defeat in the real war. On a symbolic level, in 1955, Adenauer had achieved what the Wehrmacht soldiers (including the woman’s son) had failed to arrive at between 1941 and 1945. By presenting its audience with the image of the “hero-father” returning from the East, something that in reality happened all too rarely, this scene of Meeting in the Kremlin performs important compensatory work on the West German collective memory of the Second World War.

79 “Ein Kollege hat mir einige Jahre nach diesem Ereignis einmal gesagt, diese Reise habe ja fast den Anschein einer Fortsetzung des Nibelungenliedes bekommen; hier werde sozusagen sagenhaft eine Reise des alten Bundeskanzlers gezeigt, der die deutschen Gefangenen unter schrecklichen Umständen freikämpft, eben ähnlich der Fahrt zum Hunnenkönig Etzel im Nibelungenlied – nur natürlich diesmal mit einem Happy End. Adenauer kämpft in der Hauptstadt der Sowjetunion die Gefangenen frei. Das war doch das, was die Deutschen in erster Linie von diesen Verhandlungen mitbekommen haben, was sie bewegte.” Ruge, “Adenauers Reise nach Moskau,” 120.

170 Staging West German Democracy Secondly, the scene points to an important shift in gender relations brought about by the returning Wehrmacht veterans all over Germany: while the woman emotionally greets Adenauer as the “father of the nation” returning from the East, she equally subjects herself to his male authority. The woman’s humble and submissive posture symbolically anticipates what is going to happen in the households into which the POWs are about to return. The women, many of whom until then had acted as family breadwinners and heads of household, would have to resign their position to the returning men as reflected in the conservative family politics of Adenauer’s Minister for Family Affairs Franz-Josef Würmeling.80 Accordingly, official family politics depicted women as the center of the private realm of the family. Erica Carter comments that under Würmeling’s leadership, “efforts were made to reestablish the family as the linchpin of socio-symbolic order at the national level.”81 Thus, Adenauer and the woman—unwittingly or not—are depicted as performing and symbolically reinforcing key sociopolitical shifts that unfolded in the West German social fabric of the Adenauer years. In line with the film’s PR purpose, the portrayal of Adenauer’s return to Bonn as a hero’s homecoming, carefully exploited in the editing room for its multiple symbolisms and placed in prominent position in the narrative, downplays the group effort of the delegation and credits the release of Germany’s last POWs solely to the chancellor, even though SPD politician Carlo Schmidt especially played a critical role in the negotiations.82 It also sets the stage for the film’s conclusion: this “symbolic homecoming” precedes the images of the POWs’ actual homecoming in the film, and, in terms of its narrative logic, visually counterbalances the images of the defeated ex-soldiers arriving at the Friedland reception center. Right before the film’s conclusion with the images of the arriving POWs, the fourth part of Meeting in the Kremlin consists of a brief scene depicting Adenauer presiding over the parliamentary negotiations

80 A member of the CDU’s conservative wing, Würmeling’s politics were characterized by a highly traditional perspective on women and the family. Consequently, and as much as the West German democracy would allow, Würmeling’s ministry was a bulwark against equal rights for women, instead emphasizing their fundamental “difference” from men and advocating for a gender politics centered on women as mothers and caregivers. For a detailed account on gender relations during the Adenauer period, see Schissler, “’Normalization’ as Project,” 359–75. 81 Erica Carter, How German Is She?: Postwar West German Reconstruction and the Consuming Woman (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997), 35. 82 Ruge, “Adenauer in Moskau 1955,” 137; Kilian, Adenauers Reise nach Moskau, 163–8; Backhaus, Begegnung im Kreml, 82.

Cold Warrior Discourse 171 about diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union (the Soviet condition for the prisoners’ release that was met by Adenauer during the negotiations) in the Bundestag. Introduced by shots of the Bundeshaus in Bonn and the commentary “Dr. Adenauer explains the outcome to the parliament” (27:13),83 the chancellor is once again shown to be in control, this time of the democratic procedures in the Bundestag. The Bundestag sequence reveals an obvious effort to dispel any impression of a rapprochement with the Soviet Union. Adenauer is shown underlining that the Federal Republic was an “unambiguously Western and European-oriented power” (27:22), and insisting that the concession of diplomatic relations to the Soviets would be used to reinforce the “voices of the West” (27:32) heard in Moscow.84 This segment was to pacify potential critics that Adenauer might have come too close to the Soviet regime during the negotiations. After Adenauer’s remarks, the leader of the SPD opposition, Erich Ollenhauer, usually in charge of verbal attacks on the chancellor, is shown to thank Adenauer in submissive tones for his efforts: “We are grateful to the Federal Chancellor for his tenacious struggle for the release of the prisoners and deported, and we hope that the implementation of the agreement in Moscow will heal one of the most painful wounds inflicted by Hitler’s disastrous war” (28:28).85 Both Adenauer’s and Ollenhauer’s statements are crosscut by images of the applauding plenary, casting the SPD opposition as politically compliant with Adenauer’s policy. After this parliamentary interlude, the film’s last part reveals the supposed effect of Adenauer’s policies by depicting the POWs’ arrival in West Germany and the emotional reunion with their families. This sequence highlights the consequences of Adenauer’s ostensible political and humanitarian heroism and charges the film’s narrative with maximum emotive force: the impact of Adenauer’s foreign policy on West Germany is rendered in the form of human drama. The film’s dramatic conclusion, a sequence of about three minutes in length, opens with a shot of the Friedland tower bell (29:48) and closes with a scene in which the former POWs and their families recite the

83 “Dr. Adenauer erläutert dem Parlament die Ergebnisse.” Meeting in the Kremlin, 27:13. 84 “Indem die Bundesrepublik als eine eindeutig westliche, europäisch orientierte Macht nun ebenfalls einen Vertreter in Moskau haben wird, wird sie dort die Stimmen des Westens um eine weitere verstärken.” Meeting in the Kremlin, 27:32. 85 “Wir danken dem Herrn Bundeskanzler für sein beharrliches Ringen um die Freigabe der Gefangenen und Verschickten und wir hoffen, dass mit der Verwirklichung dieser Verabredung in Moskau eine der schmerzlichsten Wunden geschlossen wird, die der unselige Hitlerkrieg geschlagen hat.” Meeting in the Kremlin, 28:28.

172 Staging West German Democracy Lord’s Prayer (32:40). This creates a thematic frame around the POWs’ return and imbues the images of homecoming with solemn and religious undertones. These suggest the return of Germany’s “prodigal sons,” the remembrance and religious sublimation of their suffering, their “redemption” through the politics of the redeemer figure Adenauer (even though the chancellor is not present), and the mourning for those who perished in Soviet labor camps. It is a cathartic scene in which the POWs, their families, West German politicians, and members of the church collectively work through the suffering, the guilt, and the joy of reunification. In visual terms, it finally puts a traumatic past to rest. Sentimental, emotive music accompanies the scenes in which the POWs leave the buses that brought them to Friedland and meet their loved ones. Close-ups of women holding photos of their husbands and sons (30:16) alternate with shots of men being reunited with their families (30:33). The commentary “On this street of joyous reunion: many who waited in vain” (30:53),86 together with a shot of a crying, older woman and a younger woman intently scanning the crowd for her missing family member, reminds the viewer of the many men who did not return. This reinforces the German victim narrative consistently favored by the film. The film continues the victim perspective after showing Federal President Theodor Heuss repatriating the POWs with the markedly vague words “My fellow Germans returning from the far East” (31:10).87 A spokesman for the POWs is then shown to address the former soldiers and their families from a small stage: We stand before you with beating hearts and tears in our eyes. We are not ashamed of these tears. We did not cry for ten years. Not once. We are not crying because we have put a hard time behind us. We are crying because there is so much love and loyalty, as we were able to witness today. If I, as the spokesman of these 600 soldiers who are returning as the last ones from the great war, if I am allowed to speak in front of you and for them, then this is the greatest honor to me.88 (32:27) 86 “An dieser Straße der Wiedersehensfreude: viele, die vergebens warteten.” Meeting in the Kremlin, 30:53. 87 “Liebe Landsleute, Heimkehrer aus dem fernen Osten.” Meeting in the Kremlin, 31:10. 88 Wir stehen mit klopfendem Herzen und mit Tränen in den Augen vor Ihnen. Wir schämen uns dieser Tränen nicht. Wir haben 10 Jahre lang nicht geweint. Nicht einmal. Wir weinen auch nicht darüber, dass eine schwere Zeit hinter uns liegt. Wir weinen darüber, dass es soviel Liebe und soviel Treue gibt, wie wir sie heute erleben konnten. Wenn ich heute als Beauftragter dieser 600 Soldaten, die als letzte zurückkehren aus dem großen Kriege, vor Ihnen sprechen darf, und für sie sprechen darf, dann ist für mich das die größte Ehre.” Meeting in the Kremlin, 32:27.

Cold Warrior Discourse 173 Two things are important about this speech: Firstly, it stresses the German victim status; there is no mention of the preceding attack on the Soviet Union, of Soviet casualties, the Second World War is theatrically referred to as “the great war.” Secondly, and coinciding with the Bundeswehr’s founding in November of 1955, the scene defiantly upholds and rehabilitates German soldierly virtues. It praises the soldiers and their families, emphasizing that their families, especially their wives, stood lovingly and faithfully behind them. The issue of “loyalty” (German: “Treue”) carries a crucial double meaning in this context: national loyalty to the cause of the POWs and, in the private realm, the sexual faithfulness of the wives. All in all, this scene reinforces the impression of a tight community between these men, their families, and West Germany. It recasts the POWs as honorable soldier-citizens and morally untainted individuals who doggedly lived through the ordeal of an undeserved imprisonment. As the camera pans over the assembled crowd, the men on the screen are not presented as perpetrators, but rather as victimized heroes, and they are recognized and welcomed as such by a grateful nation. Through the crosscutting in this scene, which alternates between shots of the speaker, the POWs, and their families, the former soldiers are finally demobilized and symbolically repatriated into the community of all Germans. The short sequence at the end of the film, in which the assembled crowd, together with Federal President Theodor Heuss, recites the Lord’s Prayer, is central for the film’s message, for it imbues this “family reunion”89 with strong allegorical qualities. Of particular interest in this context is a montage of three medium close-ups of two returning POWs and a civilian woman. The former soldiers represent the Wehrmacht and thus Hitler’s war of aggression. At the same time, the POWs’ faces speak of the enormous struggle of trying to stay alive in the Soviet labor camps. The woman symbolizes the German civilian population, which, like the former soldiers in the film, is cast into a double role: as potential perpetrator or at least passive ‘fellow travelers’ of the Nazis, and as victim (of the war and as someone who was missing a family member for so many years). The allegorical effect arises from the placement of the montage in close proximity to the scene depicting the Federal President, various church leaders, and the former POWs with their

89 Examining a regular NDW newsreel about the Friedland reunion event, which must have featured many similar shots, Schwarz calls attention to the “dramaturgisch ausgefeilte Inszenierung einer ‘Familienzusammenführung’ ” and argues that the montage of individual shots of a couple with two adolescent children created the sense of a “zum Happy End führenden ‘family reunion’Geschichte.” Schwarz, Wochenschau, 200.

174 Staging West German Democracy

Figures 4.3–4.5 Montage of three medium-close-ups of former German soldiers and civilians reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Meeting in the Kremlin. German Federal Archive.

Cold Warrior Discourse 175

Figures 4.3–4.5 Continued

families uttering the words of the Lord’s Prayer: “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us” (32:49).90 Through the vague allusion of the “personalizing” close-ups while the key sentences of the Lord’s Prayer are spoken, the film’s careful staging of this scene by the Deutsche Wochenschau actually acknowledges German guilt, although it immediately balances it against the discourse of German suffering. The strong religious overtones of the Friedland sequence suggest a redemption-theme: Through the collective and public display of religion led by the federal president, the highest West German leader (even outranking Adenauer), West Germans are able to close the book on one of the most traumatic aspects of their Second World War experience. The symbols of the church bells ringing, the POW’s address, and the Lord’s Prayer all suggest that the assembled crowd, which through Heuss’ presence metonymically represents West Germany, has worked through the trauma. They have attested to their suffering before God, and they have asked for forgiveness for the crimes and

90 “Und vergib uns unsere Schuld / Wie auch wir vergeben unseren Schuldigern.” Meeting in the Kremlin, 32:49.

176 Staging West German Democracy wrongdoings they have allowed themselves to admit. In the narrative logic of the film, and according to Adenauer’s screen image, Adenauer led them to redemption. The religious symbolism of the film therefore plays an important part in reinforcing the Federal Republic’s “founding myth” described by Moeller as a transition from a “community of victims” to a “community of survivors,”91 that was ready to move forward with building their new nation. The Friedland sequence illustrates that in order to make the collective memory whole again, large parts had to be deliberately excluded. The redemption-narrative established by this sequence was only possible through the far-ranging suppression of the discourse of German perpetration, while upholding a narrative of German victimhood. Historian Ruth Wittlinger argues in this context that there actually existed a West German collective memory of the years of the Third Reich; however, it focused largely on German victimhood, while “widespread amnesia only applied to the crimes committed in the period between 1933 and 1945.”92 Uta Schwarz sums up her observations about the treatment of the POW question in the regular Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel as following: “National Socialism and the war, which had preceded the imprisonment, remained suppressed. [. . .] The violence of the war appeared reduced to the experience of the Soviet camps.”93 On similar terms, Meeting in the Kremlin shuns explicit references as to how and why these ex-soldiers fell into the hands of the Soviet Union. The editing of these scenes presents to the viewer a collective reworking of the German experience of the war against the Soviet Union: it aims to put to rest a traumatic past and suggests reciprocal forgiveness as embodied by the Lord’s Prayer as a path into the future. With these images, the film’s narrative of Konrad Adenauer’s “trip into the unknown,” framed as a dangerous expedition into the unfamiliar and threatening territory of the communist enemy, is complete: “Adenauer fights to liberate the prisoners in the capital of the Soviet Union.”94—this is the message that Meeting in the Kremlin relays in symbolically complex images.

Conclusion: A Failed PR Film? Meeting in the Kremlin lends itself well as a case study of the political function of Deutsche Wochenschau PR films as “government channels”

91 Robert G. Moeller, “The Politics of the Past in the 1950,” 38. 92 Ruth Wittlinger, “Taboo or Tradition? The ‘Germans as Victims’ Theme in West Germany until the Early 1990s,” in Germans as Victims: Remembering the Past in Contemporary Germany, ed. Bill Niven (Basigstoke: Palgrave, 2006), 64. 93 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 197. 94 Ruge, “Adenauer in Moskau 1955,” 120.

Cold Warrior Discourse 177 in West Germany’s otherwise democratic media landscape. By creating an unambiguously positive image of Adenauer, the film helped cement the chancellor’s media image of the patriarchal elder statesman. By focusing on Adenauer’s diplomatic skill in its reporting on the negotiations in Moscow, the film highlights his status as an undeterred Cold Warrior, who took it upon himself personally to finally bring Germany’s “lost sons” home. Correspondingly, the old woman’s hand kiss on the airfield assumes the quality of a personal tribute that highlights Adenauer’s singularly elevated status among West German politicians. Most of the scenes discussed in this chapter deal with families, and by extension with Germany as a whole. While the film’s laudatory reporting on the negotiations in Moscow highlights Adenauer’s function as a politician whose policies are based on broad political consensus and executed in the best interest of West Germany, the images of homecoming and reunion symbolically close the book on the traumatic German experience in the aftermath of Operation Barbarossa. Presented as a direct result of Adenauer’s policies, these images allow for mourning for those who perished, celebrate the return of the ones that survived and the reunion with their families, and serve as a sobering reminder that such a war must never happen again. By vaguely alluding to German guilt, while always balancing it against a much more detailed narrative German of victimhood, the ending of Meeting in the Kremlin aims to symbolically overcome a haunted, very recent past. Along the lines of Adenauer’s retort in Moscow, that “also in Germany, terrible things happened,” the film meets the West German audience’s expectations by confidently highlighting German victim status, while the narrative of German perpetration, which explains the POWs’ miserable existence in Soviet camps for more than ten years, is omitted. During the onset of the economic miracle in 1956, this film offered its West German audience an opportunity to finally turn the page on a lingering and highly disturbing chapter of recent history. According to Uta Schwarz, who has examined the regular Neue Deutsche Wochenschau reporting on the event, the reunion images from Friedland represent a “symbolical capstone of the war” to the West German audience of 1956.95 With the last of the remaining POWs back on German soil, the film suggests that West Germans now are ready to direct their attention fully to the future. In the narrative logic of the film, this closure was given to West Germans solely by the political talent and diplomatic skill of their chancellor, Konrad Adenauer.

95 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 198.

178 Staging West German Democracy At the same time, as evidenced by its rather complicated production history, the film proved inherently problematic for the Press Office. The year 1955 was a time of heightened anti-communist sentiment in the Federal Republic, as well as in the US, which during that time experienced McCarthyism and the “Red Scare.” The Press Office’s concerns that the film could be misconstrued as an indication of West German–Soviet rapprochement in spite of its at times aggressive Cold War rhetoric reflects an acute concern that the West German audience of the time might be confused by images that expressed respect or curiosity about the communist Cold War opponent. If misinterpreted, these images carried the risk of offending Adenauer’s CDU-following. They also could have been misinterpreted as an indirect support of the CDU’s opposition party, the SPD. In 1955, the SPD still pursued a Socialist course before the drastic change of its party program in Bad Godesberg, which adopted the principles of the market economy in 1959. These scenes could have reassured a left-leaning, pro-SPD audience to believe that further negotiations with the Soviets regarding a German reunification, as demanded by Ollenhauer prior to the Bundestag’s ratification of the Bonn–Paris Conventions on February 27, 1955,96 were a promising possibility. Another reason for the Federal Press Office’s restraint about the film may have had to do with the West German public’s conflicted reaction towards the news that the POWs would be released. As it turned out, while all West Germans sympathized with the fate of the POWs, not all of them eagerly awaited the images of returning POWs on the newsreel screen. In the fall of 1955, a staggering amount of German soldiers still counted as missing in action, with the families still unsure whether their husband, father, son, or brother would actually be among those repatriated after the agreement reached in Moscow. The transferring of the “last 10,000” back to Germany did not change anything about the still unresolved fates of a much larger number of individuals. In 1955, the German Red Cross put together lists that comprised 199 volumes with 700 pages each and in their entirety counted 1.4 million former Wehrmacht soldiers still missing. Still in 2015, the fates of 1.2 million Germans during the Second World War, civilian and military, remain unresolved.97 These shocking numbers suggest that the film’s effort at providing a “symbolical capstone” that laid the lingering question of

96 Letter by Adenauer to Ollenhauer, January 29, 1955, KAS Archiv online, http:// www.konrad-adenauer.de/dokumente/briefe/brief-ollenhauer 97 “DRK-Suchdienst: Den Vermissten des Krieges auf der Spur,” mainpost.de, May 3, 2015, http://www.mainpost.de/ueberregional/bayern/DeutscheSoldaten-Kriegsgefangenschaft-Schicksal-Weltkriege-Zweiter-Weltkrieg1939-1945;art16683,8699312

Cold Warrior Discourse 179 what happened to the German soldiers to rest might have proven to be an illusion. On October 8, 1955, one day after the first transport from the Soviet Union had reached Friedland, a woman from Hamburg wrote a complaint to the Federal Ministry of the Interior with the following wording: I anticipate with dread that during the next weeks, we will see the film newsreels with the reunion scenes in Friedland again. As much as I sympathize with the joy of the homecomers’ families, I also understand every woman, mother, or father, children and so forth, who know that their son or husband is still in Russia as a missing person or as a prisoner, that these people cannot bear to watch these newsreel images and do not want to do so in the first place. My own husband is still missing in Russia, since 19[illegible] to be exact, and I can tell you how much these images hurt.98 This letter suggests that the premise of Meeting in the Kremlin’s narrative construction, to lay the past to rest through its symbolically charged images, did actually not sit well with the entire West German population, and that some of the still missing West Germans’ families might not have appreciated Meeting in the Kremlin for similar reasons as stated above. All in all, Meeting in the Kremlin did not seem to have hit the right notes regarding one of the arguably most complex topics of the West German experience post 1945. The experiences of individual Germans, although equally traumatic, were apparently too diverse to be put to rest by images of a late and happy reunion. In this regard, Meeting in the Kremlin stands out as an example of the PR films’ limitations. At the same time, the film’s “failure” did not hold the Federal Press Office back from handling equally complex and emotional issues in the films on the rapprochement with France, which will be discussed in the following chapter.

98 “Mit Grauen denke ich daran, daß wir nun in den nächsten Wochen wieder die Film-Wochenschauen zu sehen bekommen mit den Wiedersehensszenen in Friedland. So sehr ich die Freude der Angehörigen der Heimkehrer verstehe, so sehr verstehe ich aber jede Frau, Mutter oder Vater, Kinder usw. , die ihren Sohn oder Mann noch in Rußland wissen als Vermißter oder Gefangener, daß sie diese Wochenschaubilder nicht sehen können und wollen. Ich selbst habe noch meinen Mann in Rußland und zwar seit 19[unleserlich] vermißt und ich kann Ihnen sagen, wie diese Bilder schmerzen.” Letter by Käthe Hartwig to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, October 8, 1955 (BArchiv B106/958).

180

Five The Reconciliation Discourse: The PR Films on the Rapprochement with France

Introduction When Konrad Adenauer visited Paris in July of 1962 during his first official state visit in France, the West German magazine Der Spiegel reported the following about his reception in the French capital: The inhabitants of the district Porte d’Orléans, who never applauded for any state guest but Khrushchev, received the limousine with eggs and tomatoes. One of them burst only centimeters away from the chancellor’s nose on the half-rolled-up window. The Citroën, splattered with egg yolk and tomato paste, accelerated. ‘We do not want Strauss [the Federal Republic’s minster of defense]!’ one poster said. Catcalls erupted. At the church on the rue d’Alésia, there was chanting ‘Oradour-SS! No Nazis in Paris!’1 This reception was a stark reminder to Adenauer that the collective memory of the Second World War and the German occupation still cast a long shadow in France. The protesters’ reference to the infamous massacre committed by the SS at Oradour-sur-Glane on June 10, 1944 aptly illustrates the main problem complexes at play in the

1

“Die Einwohner der Viertels Porte D’Orléans, die außer Chruschtschow noch keinem Staatsgast applaudiert haben, empfingen die Staatskarosse mit Eiern und Tomaten. Eine zerplatzte weniger Zentimeter vor der Kanzlernase an dem halbhoch gedrehten Seitenfenster. Der mit Eigelb und Tomatenmark bekleckerte Citroen beschleunigte das Tempo. ‘Wir wollen nicht Strauss!’ stand auf einem Plakat. Pfiffe ertönten. Bei der Kirche an der Rue d’Alésia brüllten Sprechchöre: ‘Oradour – SS! Keine Nazis in Paris!“ “Noch möglichst lange,” Der Spiegel, 28/1962, http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-45140782.html

181

182 Staging West German Democracy Franco-German relationship in 1962.2 A formative year for FrancoGerman relations that saw the visits of Adenauer to France from July 2 to 8, and of French State President Charles de Gaulle to the Federal Republic from September 4 to 9, the two world wars that had pitted the two nations against each other, were far from forgotten. In spite of the recently developing, friendly political relations under Adenauer and de Gaulle, the years 1914–18 and 1940–5 still loomed large as the high-water marks of a long-lingering conflict in collective memory. Contemporary opinion polls indicated that les boches were still the nation in Europe the French disliked the most.3 Although there was still a long way to go before the French and the Germans could put the long-established animosities to rest, both Adenauer and de Gaulle fully understood in the summer of 1962 that overcoming this past was a crucial step in building the foundations of the European Community. In the interests of prosperity and military security, it was essential for both countries to join forces. A joint foreign policy had to be undertaken. This chapter analyzes PR films on the two state visits from 1962, a crucial year in Franco-German relations. The films accompany and illustrate the German foreign policy efforts with inspiring images of symbolic acts of reconciliation. In September of 1962, Two Nations Reconcile (Zwei Völker versöhnen sich), a 30 min b/w film on Adenauer’s state visit to France, was available to the German public. Its counterpart, The Path into the Future (Der Weg in die Zukunft), a b/w film that documented de Gaulle’s reciprocal state visit to West Germany, was released later that year with a running length of 32 minutes.4 The central argument this chapter puts forth is that the films’ narratives cinematically exploit performative acts of reconciliation by Adenauer and de Gaulle during their public appearances and speeches. Through their shot composition, commentary, and editing, they overwrite critical aspects of both nations’ collective memory on the First and Second World Wars

2

3

4

The protesters’ reaction alludes to the fact that Adenauer had originally planned to take along Federal Chancellery director Hans Globke, infamous for authoring the judicial commentary to the Nuremberg laws. At the urging of the West German ambassador to France, Herbert Blankenhorn, however, Adenauer had decided in a last-minute decision not to take Globke along. “Noch möglichst lange.” “Meinungsumfrage: Das Deutschlandbild der Franzosen,” Lebendiges Museum Online, http://www.hdg.de/lemo/objekte/statistik/DieZuspitzungDesKalten Krieges_umfrageDeutschlandbildFranzosen/index.html (accessed September 9, 2014). A third film, Neighbors (Nachbarn), released in 1963, presents a historical review of the Erbfeindschaft and in emphatic images and commentary insists that this period would now be over. Mainly comprised of old archival footage, this film does not add much new insight to my argument and will not be discussed here.

The Reconciliation Discourse 183 by presenting a forward-oriented narrative of European integration defined by economic and military partnership.5

Staging Performative Acts of Reconciliation at Franco-German Memory Spaces As a central scene during Adenauer’s visit to Paris, Two Nations Reconcile features footage of Konrad Adenauer’s visit to the Arc de Triomphe. In somber, atmospheric images it shows the chancellor laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (14:25).

Figure 5.1 Adenauer at the Arc de Triomphe. Two Nations Reconcile (Zwei Völker versöhnen sich, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1962). German Federal Archive.

5

In this context, Eugen Pfister’s excellent transnational study on European imaginaries in newsreels from Austria, Great Britain, France, and Germany during the 1950s is also of interest. Pfister examines images of European cooperation up to 1959, precursors of the PR films’ narratives on Adenauer’s and de Gaulle’s partnership of the early 1960s. Particularly his observations about earlier “German-French State Meetings” are of interest here: Pfister, Europa im Bild, 178–82.

184 Staging West German Democracy Such a tribute, captured by the newsreel cameras and witnessed by top-level politicians, the local media, and ordinary Parisians, centers the film’s narrative: through the act’s cinematic staging, the film depicts Adenauer delivering a message of reconciliation and atonement in the name of all Germans. The Path into the Future likewise contains a number of scenes that depict de Gaulle’s similar symbolic acts of reconciliation in Germany. Together, and with the two leaders as metonymic representatives of their respective nations, Two Nations Reconcile and The Path into the Future form a filmic document of mutual acts of tribute and respect, that realign and overwrite parts of the two nations’ collective memory of the war-ridden past. In order to adequately frame this effect for analysis, it is helpful to look at observations that Simone Derix has made in relation to de Gaulle’s 1962 visit. The arguments in this chapter build upon Derix’s observation that the French President “consciously entered into situations and locales that could trigger memories of the National Socialist period or call up bygone images in people’s minds, in order to overwrite them with the images that he offered.”6 Based on contemporary newspaper reporter Hermann Schreiber’s observation that de Gaulle’s visit to Munich, the origin of the Nazi party, resembled “a kind of political exorcism,” Derix argues: De Gaulle’s actions can indeed be understood as a secularized version of the ‘ritualistic driving out of a demon.’ He incorporated all sense perceptions in a dramatic composition. [. . .] De Gaulle attempted to strengthen the national confidence of the (West-) Germans in the very spot where they had been discredited. The locales where formerly National Socialist images and voices could be localized psychologically were now to be inhabited by images of de Gaulle and concepts of a quasi-purged nation.7 Derix’s notion of “the locales where echoes of national socialist images and voices could be detected” can be conceptualized as “memory spaces.” These are locations or events associated with the nations’ collective memory, where, in the words of historian Pierre Nora, “memory crystallizes and secretes itself.”8 The films allude directly to several such memory spaces, such as the German occupation of Paris during the Second World War (1940–4), national memorials, the Rhine as the contested natural border between the countries, war cemeteries,

6 7 8

Derix, Bebilderte Politik, 138. Derix, Bebilderte Politik, 141. Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History,” 7.

The Reconciliation Discourse 185 First World War battlefields, and even steel factories that had been used to produce arms. In this process, Adenauer and de Gaulle take center stage as “performers,” who metonymically represent their respective nations in the films. In their editing then, the films conduct a “reconciliation discourse” by staging and thus emphasizing the symbolic effect of the two statesmen’s actions at these memory spaces and inscribing them with new meaning to connote collective mourning, mutual forgiveness, and a new, forward-facing, military and economic partnership. Apart from speech excerpts and the films’ commentary, the reconciliation discourse largely plays out on the level of symbolism and allusions in the films. For all of these manifestations, the category of performativity as adapted from Judith Butler’s discourse-based definition as “that reiterative power of discourse to produce the phenomena that it regulates and constraints” is central.9 For Butler, the act of repeatedly defining oneself is crucial in creating an identity; this equally holds true as a pattern for acts of reconciliation that are deliberately and repeatedly “performed” for the world in general and the screen in particular. By celebrating a church mass at Reims together, or by de Gaulle shaking hands with German Second World War veterans, the politicians perform acts of reconciliation that in their inherent symbolic meaning proclaim, as mere speech acts declare, and through their distribution through the newsreel medium create, iconic testimonials of the new Franco-German friendship. Through their deliberate staging and distribution on the newsreel screen, these images of reconciliation were meant to enter and alter West Germans’ collective memory.

Onward Towards Europe: Franco-German Relations in 1962 The elaborate symbolic complexes mobilized by the politicians, cameramen, and the Deutsche Wochenschau film editors in these films reflect the importance attributed to the project of Franco-German reconciliation on both sides of the Rhine. Adenauer’s great personal investment in the Franco-German political rapprochement and the importance he saw in it are well documented in the historical scholarship.10 After the Second World War ended, and as early as 1948, Adenauer had stressed that “the entire European future hinges on a real

9 Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (London: Routledge, 1993), 2. 10 See for example: Schwarz, Wochenschau, 354–77; Lily Gardner Feldman, Germany’s Foreign Policy of Reconciliation: From Enmity to Amity (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 26–31.

186 Staging West German Democracy and permanent reconciliation between Germany and France.”11 The Élysée Treaty, signed in Paris on January 22, 1963, stood at the end of this process and finally formalized the emerging friendship between the two nations. The PR films examined here need to be understood as a central part of the federal government’s PR effort in preparing the ground for this treaty by fostering an understanding among the West German population about the centrality of this process for a continuation of West Germany’s path towards prosperity and security. Adenauer’s agreement with the Schumann Declaration of 1950, which proposed a joint French and German oversight on coal and steel production, united the Federal Republic and France in an economic framework that would eventually develop into the European Community. In 1955, West Germany joined France in NATO with its newly founded Bundeswehr, thereby augmenting economic ties to France in a military partnership. After a plebiscite in 1955, the Saar region, a part of the German Reich’s territory which had remained under French control after the Second World War, was allowed to join the Federal Republic in 1957. While the speed of these developments is impressive, these supranational treaties had developed faster than the bilateral relations across the Rhine. Adenauer and de Gaulle had been in intense consultation since de Gaulle had assumed the Presidency of the Fifth Republic in France in 1958.12 Initially skeptical about whether de Gaulle would continue his precursors’ policy of constructive negotiations,13 Adenauer quickly came to realize that in de Gaulle, he had found a political partner who genuinely shared his political agenda of rapprochement and reconciliation between the two countries.14 Between

11 Hanns Jürgen Küsters and Ulrike Hospes, “Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland und Frankreich – Konrad Adenauer und Charles de Gaulle,” Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, www.konrad-adenauer.de/adenauer_frankreich.html (accessed August 16, 2014). 12 Küsters and Hospes, “Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland und Frankreich.” 13 Küsters and Hospes, “Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland und Frankreich.” 14 In adopting this opinion, de Gaulle, the former leader of Free France during the Second World War, had come a long way from his initially much more critical perspective on Germany. De Gaulle played an important role in the French occupational policies, which were on the whole harsher and obstructionist, and more punitive than British or American policies, especially through his initial desire after the Second World War to detach the Rhine region from Germany, and to “in a way recreate the status quo ante 1871.” Dieter Marc Schneider, “Französische Besatzungspolitik in Deutschland: Le Rêve d’une ‘Libération’ des Pays Rhénans,” in Erobert oder befreit? Deutschland im internationalen Kräftefeld und die sowjetische Besatzungszone (1945/46), ed. Hartmut Mehringer, Michael Schwarz, and Hermann Wentker (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1998), 29.

The Reconciliation Discourse 187 1958 and 1963, the two politicians met fifteen times and engaged in more than 100 documented hours of conversation.15 While the two politicians could not have been biographically more different from another, their excellent personal rapport, highlighted in the newsreels since 1958,16 bridged these differences. This mutual affinity enabled a joint effort to improve relations between the two countries after almost 150 years of animosities, military invasions, and lingering territorial disputes. On the German side, these animosities were commonly subsumed under the heading of Erbfeindschaft, the “hereditary enmity.” Similarly, the French viewed the Germans, who had invaded their country in 1870, 1914, and 1940, as their traditional opponents and an ongoing military threat. In the German context, the phenomenon is perhaps best embodied in the patriotic song Die Wacht am Rhein (The Watch on the Rhine), which became extremely popular in Prussia in the 1870s and was still sung during the Second World War. It was Adenauer’s task to turn the “watch on the Rhine” into a bridge over the river that for centuries had served as a much-disputed natural barrier between the countries. With their elaborate symbolisms of reconciliation, the PR films analyzed below played an important role in this process.

Staging Reconciliation in Two Nations Reconcile (1962) Planning for what would become Two Nations Reconcile started in midMay of 1962, several weeks before Adenauer left for Paris on July 2 and was an integral part of the governmental PR buildup prior to the visit. By the end of May, the Deutsche Wochenschau presented the Press Office’s Head of Film Division Kurt Betz with an overview of its preliminary planning. Central to the planning was to seek a FrancoGerman collaboration in the film’s directing by inviting French director Henri Champetier from the French Pathé Journal newsreel to direct the film.17 The movie’s cost was calculated at DM 85,000 in June, an average amount compared to other PR films at the time.18 The Press Office defined the film’s purpose as “to inform the Federal Republic’s population about the Franco-German rapprochement as the cornerstone of the federal government’s European policy.”19

15 Küsters and Hospes, “Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland und Frankreich.” 16 Pfister, Europa im Bild, 180–1. 17 Letter by Wiers and Purzer (DW) to Betz (FPO), May 22, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 18 “Vorkalkulation ‘Dr. Adenauer in Paris,’” June 23, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 19 “Die Zweckbestimmung des Films ist die Informierung der Bevölkerung der Bundesrepublik über die deutsch-französische Verständigung als dem Eckpfeiler der Europa-Politik der Bundesregierung.” “Genehmigungsverfügung“ (FPO), June 26, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669).

188 Staging West German Democracy During the summer of 1962, prior to and after the state visit, the project remained a top priority. The Press Office even decided to screen the film in Aktualitätenkinos during de Gaulle’s reciprocal visit to Germany in September to help create public momentum for de Gaulle.20 Such immediate demands for the project explain why the film was finished in less than a month. After the filming in France was completed, a rough cut was assembled in less than two weeks, which was screened on July 20 at the Press Office. To facilitate communication about changes, head cameraman Wilhelm Luppa attended the screening.21 Due to the great time pressures during the film’s production, the planning negotiations between the Deutsche Wochenschau and the Press Office often took place via telex and telephone. The film’s raw cut in its different stages was subject to long exchanges, with the Press Office often asking for quickly executed, minute changes. These exchanges reveal an effort to construct images that present Adenauer as a respected statesman and confident representative of a new Germany who meets the former Second World War enemy France at eye-level. In its feedback on the rough cut’s initial screening in Bonn, the Press Office requested far-reaching changes to support this image. A case in point, a shot of the chancellor stumbling was deleted. The Press Office asked, for example, for more crowd shots reflecting enthusiasm during Adenauer’s entry to Paris.22 In order to underline the great importance of Adenauer’s state visit, the Press Office’s planning directive for the film’s commentary was “please no run-of-the-mill state visit text.”23 The Deutsche Wochenschau directly responded to this instruction when Editor in Chief Manfred Purzer sent the draft for the film’s commentary to Betz on July 23, claiming he believed that “we managed to capture the distinctiveness of the event in the words as well as images.”24 The Press Office line-edited the draft of the film’s commentary meticulously. In the handwritten annotations for the Deutsche Wochenschau, the Press Office also asked for clarification about symbolic and historical allusions made in the commentary, as in the following 20 Letter by Dr. Brunnbauer (FPO) to Dr. Thiel (Dt. Reportagefilm), August 8, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 21 Memo by Noelle for Purzer, Cleinow, and Elsterer (DW), July 20, 1962 (DW Archive). 22 “Hausmitteilung von H.Noelle an Purzer, Cleinow, Herrn Elsterer“ (DW), July 20, 1962 (DW Archive). 23 “Bitte kein 08/15 Staatsbesuchs-Text.” “Hausmitteilung von H.Noelle an Purzer, Cleinow, Herrn Elsterer“ (DW) July 20, 1962 (DW Archive). 24 “Ich glaube, dass es sich dabei nicht um einen 08/15-Staatsbesuchs-Text handelt, sondern daß es gelungen ist, die Einmaligkeit des Ereignisses auch im Wort festzuhalten.” Letter by Purzer (DW) to Betz (FPO), July 23, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669).

The Reconciliation Discourse 189 example: “I do not believe that the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a ‘national treasure,’ but rather a ‘national memorial.’ Maybe this could be verified.”25 With regard to the film’s reporting on Adenauer’s visit of the Château de Margeaux in the Bordeaux region, the Press Office also saw to it that the commentary would not cast Adenauer as a wine connoisseur: “The Federal Chancellor should not be called an ‘excellent authority on wine.’ Maybe one could speak more of wine’s status for the French economy and export in the two following paragraphs!”26 In suggesting this reference be deleted, the Press Office’s comment reflects editing that focused on Adenauer’s screen image as a sober and dedicated statesman. More importantly, the Press Office directed the way the film represented Adenauer’s and de Gaulle’s speeches. It often requested cuts at specific points in an address or the omission of particular words, as in this telex: “if possible without difficulty, suspend address by the Federal Chancellor (airport) before the 2nd insert cut and end with the last sentence.”27 Besides interventions like the ones above, the Press Office directed the Deutsche Wochenschau to arrange the available imagery, correct pronunciation of French and modify both voice-over commentary and politicians’ speeches. The film was finished by the end of August of 1962 with a total cost of DM 80,015.28 It was then distributed to the newsreel film theaters.29 The Deutsche Wochenschau also created foreign language versions of the film in French and Spanish for an additional DM 10,886.30 An English version was never made, “for political and psychological reasons,” as the Press Office argued.31 After all, it did not seem likely that

25 “Ich glaube nicht, daß das Grabmal des unbekannten Soldaten ein ‘Nationalheiligtum’ sondern vielmehr eine ‘Nationale Gedenkstätte’ der Franzosen ist. Vielleicht läßt sich dies überprüfen.” Letter by Dr. Brunnbauer (FPO) to DW, July 26, 1962 (DW Archive). 26 “Der Bundeskanzler sollte nicht als ‘hervorragender Weinkenner’ apostrophiert werden. In den beiden folgenden Absätzen könnte man vielleicht mehr von der Bedeutung des Weines für die französische Wirtschaft und den Export sprechen!” Letter by Brunnbauer (FPO) to DW, July 26, 1962 (DW Archive). 27 “wenn ohne schwierigkeiten moeglich, bundeskanzler-ansprache (flugplatz) vor dem 2. zwischenschnitt unterbrechen und mit dem letzten Satz beenden.” Telex by Brunnenbauer (FPO) to Purzer (DW), n.d. (DW Archive). 28 Invoice Nr. 677/62, DW to FPO, November 1, 1962 (DW Archive). 29 Letter by Thiel (Dt. Reportagefilm) to Brunnbauer (FPO), August 25, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 30 Invoice Nr. 819/62, Deutsche Wochenschau to Press Office, December 17, 1962 (DW Archive). 31 “In Übereinstimmung mit Referat IV/3 wird aus politischen und psychologischen Gründen von der Herstellung einer englischen Sprachfassung abgesehen.” “Genehmigungsverfügung 827-1-58 V,” (FPO) August 10, 1962 (BArchive B145/4669).

190 Staging West German Democracy the Americans would particularly enjoy a film that, through its abundant images of Franco-German military cooperation, could be read as a document suggesting a relatively lesser role of the transatlantic partnership. At home in Germany, the film was extremely successful in its subsequent non-commercial release to the national and state-level film distribution centers, which included the Protestant and Catholic film outlets and the Landesfilmdienste of the West German federal states. In total, 345 16mm copies were made by November 1962.32 These included eleven French and twenty Spanish copies that were sent to several West German diplomatic missions abroad.33 The diplomatic missions of the Federal Republic around the world were slated to receive a total of 115 German copies of the film.34 The Press Office was “strongly interested” in ensuring that Two Nations Reconcile was shown widely to the general public.35 Prior to Adenauer’s visit, de Gaulle had requested that the French TV stations display the route of Adenauer’s motorcade into Paris in the hope that as many Parisians as possible would turn out and cheer for the chancellor during his visit.36 The Press Office apparently hoped that the film’s images on Adenauer’s splendid welcome in France would motivate West Germans to do the same for de Gaulle. Therefore, the film was to be shown in fifteen Aktualitätenkinos across the Federal Republic between August 31 and September 6 in 35mm format,37 dates that partly overlapped with de Gaulle’s visit from September 4 to 9. Judging from past economic successes with commercial distributions of its PR films, the Press Office estimated that within the first week of screening the film would have several hundred thousand viewers.38 The film’s high number of copies and strategic public screening underline its prime importance for the Press Office. The narrative of Two Nations Reconcile is divided into three parts, with the Franco-German friendship providing the overarching theme. The first part focuses on Adenauer’s reception in Paris and presents 32 Invoice Nr. 677/62, DW to FPO, November 1, 1962 (DW Archive). 33 Letter by Thiel (Dt. Reportagefilm) to Betz (FPO), October 31, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669); Letter by Brunnbauer (FPO) to Dt. Reportagefilm, October 15, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 34 “Genehmigungsverfügung 827-1-58 V,” (FPO), August 10, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 35 Letter by Brunnbauer (FPO) to Thiel (Dt. Reportagefilm), August 8, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 36 “Noch möglichst lange.” 37 Letter by Thiel (Dt. Reportagefilm) to Brunnbauer (FPO), August 25, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 38 “Genehmigungsverfügung Filmreferat,” August 16, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669).

The Reconciliation Discourse 191 him as an honored political partner of France. The second part is centered on Adenauer traveling through the French provinces to create an image of the chancellor as a Francophile who, due to similarities in temperament and traditions, emerges as an understanding and wise partner of France. The film closes with two concrete expressions of the new Franco-German partnership: a joint military parade near the First World War battlefield of Mourmelon, and a festive reconciliation ceremony at the Cathedral of Reims. The film’s opening set in Paris, a survey of the Parisians’ opinions about the Franco-German reconciliation, reflects the goal of realigning the historic animosity in Franco-German collective memory. Over shots of the German flag flying alongside the tricolore, the commentary states that Parisians would be used to many foreign flags flying, but that “the colors black, red and gold caused many locals to become reflective” (0:36).39 Judging from the expectations of a West German audience in 1962, and evidenced by the scene’s further development, this euphemistic commentary refers to French unease at the German flag flying in a city the Nazis had ruled and terrorized between 1940 and 1944. However, and as in all following allusions to the German occupation of France, this history is never explicitly mentioned. The film then presents a 45-second sequence of street interviews on present and past Franco-German relations. A middle-aged woman claims that the Franco-German rapprochement would be “exactly what we need,” and a middle-aged man is shown, commenting “this is very good. This is happening for the new Europe” (1:02). Next, a middleaged man can be seen arguing “it is necessary that Adenauer also understands the French situation” (1:11). Lastly, an elderly man states “I fought against Germany 14/18. I think it is stupid to wage war. I am in favor of the rapprochement of the nations” (1:24).40 Through these interviews, this opening sets the film’s tone by introducing its three central themes. First, it alludes to the benefit of a Franco-German alliance for the building of a new and stable Europe. Second, it sensitizes the audience to the French “situation,” a euphemism referencing French collective memory of a twofold German invasion within the last fifty years. Third, this section introduces the prominent

39 “Und doch waren in diesen Tagen die Farben Schwarz-Rot-Gold Anlass dafür, dass viele Einwohner von Paris nachdenklich wurden.” Two Nations Reconcile, Deutsche Wochenschau 1962, 0:36. 40 “Eine Annäherung unserer Länder ist genau das, was wir brauchen;” “Das ist sehr gut. Es geschieht für das neue Europa;” “Aber es ist notwendig, daß Adenauer auch die französische Situation versteht;” “Ich habe 14/18 gegen Deutschland gekämpft. Ich halte es für unsinnig, Krieg zu führen. Ich bin für die Annäherung der Völker.” Two Nations Reconcile, 1:24.

192 Staging West German Democracy role of the First World War as a memory space through which to access the two nations’ entangled past. The more recent Second World War, apart from the euphemistic allusion in the second interview, is entirely absent in these observations. All three perspectives reoccur and are elaborated on in the film. As a central discursive strategy, the film references the First World War to discuss the troubled Franco-German past. The excision of Second World War perspectives addresses two major problems: First, collective memory of the Second World War was still fresh and painful. Second, the Second World War was a war with multiple complexities and ambivalences for both nations, albeit for different reasons. To name only the most obvious: the Germans had indisputably been the aggressors during Hitler’s war of expansion that brought war, devastation, and the systematic mass murder of the Holocaust over the country. The French experience of the Second World War, on the other hand, had been deeply conflicted through the Vichy regime’s extensive collaboration with the German invaders,41 which had pitted the fighters of the resistance against a group of collaborators. The First World War, on the other hand, had entered history as “the Great War,” a conflict that did not have such a wide range of conflicting associations. A focus on the First World War as a proxy reference with which to access the haunted Franco-German past would therefore circumvent more recent problems and provide a path for leveling the moral balance between the nations.42 After the Deutsche Wochenschau had completed the two films on the Franco-German rapprochement of 1962, the strategy to use the First World War as access point to the collective memory of Franco-German confrontation would continue with the 1963 film entitled Neighbors

41 Historian Robert Paxton’s assessment that the Vichy regime actually actively sought a collaboration with Hitler has been highly influential in a critical reevaluation of the Vichy regime since the 1970s. Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–1944 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 51. 42 In its focus on the First World War, the film reflects an old and established narrative strategy that can be traced back to the year 1951, when the Deutsche Wochenschau produced the film The First Step: The Story of a Letter (Der erste Schritt: Die Geschichte eines Briefes). This early PR film, which does not focus on Adenauer, can nevertheless be seen as a precursor to Two Nations Reconcile in that it first broaches the topic of a potential reconciliation by promoting the Schumann Declaration of 1950 for an iron and coal alliance between Germany and France. It was marketed as a co-production with the French Pathé newsreel in an effort to depict a spirit of cooperation between the two countries. The film is based on the true story of a young French woman who sent her father’s First World War medal to a German politician as a sign of goodwill during the Schumann Plan negotiations.

The Reconciliation Discourse 193 (Nachbarn) which offers a historical overview on the Franco-German relations back to the nineteenth century. Throughout its commentary the film insists that Verdun, the location of one of the deadliest First World War battles, was the central Franco-German memory space that connoted the horrific futility of its war-ridden Franco-German past (28:03).43 In 1962, Two Nations Reconcile’s three initial interviews create the impression of broad French public support for a Franco-German reconciliation, albeit while referencing the reservations implied by mention of the “French situation.” In the film’s narrative, that reference becomes the challenge for Adenauer to overcome. Just as he needed to gain the Americans’ trust in the US state visit film A Man Advocates for his People, in France Adenauer has to instill public confidence about a partnership undermined by history. Two Nations Reconcile’s goal is to create a new history. Adenauer’s arrival at Paris Orly airport in the film is dominated by de Gaulle’s warm words of welcome, crediting Adenauer with having given the Federal Republic a “completely new face.” De Gaulle is then shown praising Adenauer as the leader responsible for “Germany’s remarkable ascent, which [. . .] falls into place with our own progress and contributes to our security” (5:15).44 To the West German audience of 1962, this opening reiterates the Federal Republic’s ascent from the ruins of the Second World War as the work of a great leader sharing the stature for Germans that de Gaulle had for the French. In sharp contrast to the Der Spiegel report on the anti-Adenauer protests, Two Nations Reconcile presents the audience with glamorous and triumphant images of the chancellor’s motorcade on its way through Paris. The evocative language in the commentary seeks to emphasize the scene’s immanent spectacle: “The route of this entry is a via triumphalis, which is only opened to few people of this earth” (8:15).45 The use of the German “Einzug halten,” mentioned twice in this sequence, together with the Latin “via triumphalis” bears military connotations and alludes to the festive entrance by conquerors, armies,

43 Neither The First Step nor Neighbors does not add significantly to the arguments made in this chapter. They will therefore not be discussed here. 44 “Frankreich empfängt Sie mit Freude, weil das völlig neue Gesicht, das Sie Ihrem Land gegeben haben, und der außerordentliche Wiederaufstieg, der sich in Deutschland unter ihrer Regierung vollzogen hat, weit davon entfernt, unseren Interessen zu schaden, und unsere Befürchtungen hervorzurufen, sich mit unserem eigenen Fortschritt vereinbart, und zu unserer Sicherheit beiträgt.” Two Nations Reconcile, 5.15. 45 “Die Route dieses Einzuges ist eine via triumphalis, die nur wenigen dieser Erde geöffnet wird.” Two Nations Reconcile, 8:15.

194 Staging West German Democracy or emperors of former times, often into an occupied city.46 The images and commentary of Adenauer’s magnificent welcome impact the film’s contemporary audience on two levels. Firstly, they suggest that there is a true admiration and respect for Adenauer, and by extension, for West Germany. In regard to the recent Second World War past, however, a second layer of implications emerges. Especially in combination with the commentary hinting at the undertones of military conquest, the welcome sequence also evokes the collective memory of the Wehrmacht’s occupation of Paris from 1940 to 1944. Many of the older audience members of the German audience might have recalled well-known film clips from the Third Reich Die Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel No. 513 of July 1940 that show Hitler and Wehrmacht officials, as they tour the occupied city in open cars.47 As standard footage repeatedly used in historical documentaries, they have come to symbolize the entire occupation for many Germans. For the West German audience of 1962, the images of Adenauer, “received like a friend among friends” (8:57),48 riding in the same car with Charles de Gaulle, one of Nazi Germany’s most formidable enemies and the former head of the French exile government, have a dual visual impact. In its desired effect then, this scene overwrites the collective memory of the German military conquest with contemporary images of a German “diplomatic conquest,” a peaceful, alternative triumph. One cannot help but notice the dramatic contradiction between Der Spiegel’s and the film’s report on Adenauer’s reception in Paris. The film’s rendering of Adenauer’s reception conflicts even more drastically with the atmosphere of Adenauer’s 1951 trip to the French capital for the signing of the Schumann Declaration. In 1951, “on the French side, there were worries of dismissive or even hostile reactions by the own population,” so that his motorcade had to speed through Paris without stopping, due to fears of assassination attempts.49 While the sentiment might have changed considerably after eleven years of Franco-German politics, the Spiegel report of 1962 still reflected the French collective memory more accurately than the film when it emphasized stilllingering anti-German sentiment stemming from the Second World

46 “Einzug halten,” Duden online, http://www.duden.de/suchen/dudenonline/ Einzug%20halten (accessed September 22, 2014). 47 Die Deutsche Wochenschau, No. 513. July 3, 1940. Content description retrieved from http://www.filmarchives-online.eu/viewDetailForm?FilmworkID= 7119bc9414e3fefbc840cd3a550fcf2a 48 “Für Dr. Adenauer erfüllt sich ein Herzenswunsch. Er wird wie ein Freund unter Freunden empfangen.” Two Nations Reconcile, 8.57. 49 Pfister, Europa im Bild, 183.

The Reconciliation Discourse 195 War past. By granting the jubilant images of the visit center stage, however, Two Nations Reconcile reflects both German and French efforts to manipulate collective memory with a future partnership between the nations in mind. The film’s positive reporting therefore favors a political interest (to create images necessary to overwrite the collective memory of the Erbfeindschaft) over accuracy in representing the full spectrum of the French population’s sentiments. De Gaulle, who carefully planned and orchestrated the visit to create the impression of an overwhelmingly positive reaction to Adenauer,50 had only made these images possible in the first place and emerges as an important accomplice in this effort. The film’s strategy of inscribing memory spaces with new meaning continues during the film’s rendering of a wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider at the Arc de Triomphe, a crucial French memory space containing the remains of a soldier who fell in the fight against Germany during the First World War. The Arc de Triomphe also calls up collective memory of the occupation of France during the Second World War, as it too was often present in Nazi newsreels. Roughly located in the middle of the PR film, the sequence’s quality as a symbolic centerpiece is explicitly highlighted by the words “a critical hour has arrived” (13:42).51 A shot (and the sound) of a military honor guard playing the bugles sets the tone of military mourning. With the entire crowd and the guard in total silence, Adenauer is shown walking up to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier while the wreath is being laid down. Accompanied by the sound of bugle calls, the wreath is then presented in close-up with the embroidered words “The Federal Chancellor” (Der Bundeskanzler) and the German national colors, thus emphasizing the power of Adenauer’s office and Adenauer’s function as metonymic representative of the German people. The commentary aims to maximize the impact of the ceremonial scene for the audience: “No discord disturbs the solemnity and dignity of this tribute. A great statesman, a friend of France, who himself had to suffer in and from the unfortunate past is called upon to deliver the salute and respect of the German people to France’s war dead” (14:50).52 With great similarities in shot composition, this scene from Two Nations Reconcile “overwrites”

50 Michaela Wiegel, “Deutsch-französische Freundschaft: Am Anfang der Aussöhnung,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, July 8, 2012, http://www.faz. net/1.1813966 51 “Eine entscheidende Stunde bricht an.” Two Nations Reconcile, 13.42. 52 “Kein Missklang stört die Feierlichkeit und Würde dieser Andacht. Ein großer Staatsmann, ein Freund Frankreichs, der selbst in und an der unseligen Vergangenheit gelitten hat, ist dazu berufen, Gruß und Ehrerbietung des deutschen Volkes an die Kriegsopfer Frankreichs zu überbringen.” To Nations Reconcile, 14.50.

196 Staging West German Democracy a similar scene from the Die Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel of 1940, in which high-ranking German Wehrmacht members pay their respect to French soldiers fallen during the German invasion of France.53 The next scene shows Adenauer signing the Golden Book of the Arc de Triomphe. The commentary underlines the strong performative aspect of the ceremony by explicitly casting Adenauer’s signature as putting an end to the troubled Franco-German past: “As it were, the name Adenauer in the Golden Book of the Arc de Triomphe is the sealing of an unfortunate past, a symbol of hope for a better future. The significance of this historic moment is lost to no one attending” (15:17).54 In the narrative logic of the film, and with the commentary used to highlight the symbolic value of the moment, Adenauer’s signature suggests an irrevocable break with the past and a promise for future partnership. For the symbolism of reconciliation between Germany and France to be complete, and in order to meet the expectations of the German audience, the scene depicting German atonement is complemented by a scene in which German victims are recognized and honored by the French. In 1962, a year before the Auschwitz Trials began in West Germany, and especially in popular perception, the narrative of German victimhood regarding the Second World War still largely displaced the narrative of German perpetration as “powerful integrative myth” of the Federal Republic.55 Therefore, the film’s images of German atonement had to be complemented by a French acknowledgment of German suffering. This is why the scene immediately following the Arc de Triomphe sequence depicts Adenauer laying a second wreath, this time at a German war cemetery near Versailles, while a French honor guard presents their rifles. The scene opens with shots of gravestones inscribed with names of soldiers who died in the summer of 1940, during or shortly after the Wehrmacht’s invasion of France (15:35). The next shot, however, a close-up of a memorial stone, informs the viewer that soldiers from both world wars are buried at the cemetery. This effectively aligns the recent and much more problematic war with the First World War. The fact that these soldiers died in Hitler’s war of aggression is not mentioned. The effect of this omission and the alignment with the First World War is that the Second World War is addressed for a brief moment, but only in

53 Die Deutsche Wochenschau, No. 512, June 27, 1940, 33:42. 54 “Der Name Adenauer im goldenen Buch des Arc de Triomphe ist gleichsam die Besiegelung einer unglücklichen Vergangenheit, ein Symbol der Hoffnung für eine bessere Zukunft. Keiner der Anwesenden vermag sich der Bedeutung des geschichtlichen Augenblicks zu entziehen.” Two Nations Reconcile, 15:17. 55 Moeller, “Remembering the War in a Nation of Victims,” 100.

The Reconciliation Discourse 197 the context of an anonymous death toll, of dead soldiers whose external appearance resembles that of First World War counterparts.56 The next shot, a long shot of the French honor guard presenting the rifles, is accompanied by a commentary explaining for the audience: “What deep symbolism lies in the fact that French soldiers present their rifles at a German war cemetery near Versailles, while the German Federal Chancellor is paying tribute to the victims of his people. Here rest soldiers who fell during the Second World War” (15:56).57 The film’s editing uses the accompanying images of the French honor guard to create the impression of an emotionally rousing gesture of reconciliation towards the Germans, similar to a scene depicting a military tribute at Arlington national cemetery in 1953 from A Man Advocates for his People discussed in chapter three. Explicit references to the Wehrmacht’s aggression against France during the Second World War are absent, and the rare and vague allusions to it are balanced against the German victim discourse. Concomitantly, in describing the fallen Wehrmacht soldiers at the Versailles cemetery simply as “German soldiers who fell during the Second World War,” the film eludes a critical examination of the Third Reich’s war of aggression against France. After the ceremonial images honoring both French and German victims of former wars, the narrative focuses on diplomatic and political events set in Paris that underline Franco-German shared cultural values, political accord, and military partnership. The thematic complex of a shared history of suffering from military confrontations between the nations thereby transitions into images of harmonious reunion and peaceful reconciliation. This prepares the ground for the film’s highlighting of shared cultural values between the nations, which is more interesting than the comparatively conventional, newsreel-like reporting on Adenauer’s itinerary in Paris. Adenauer’s visits to the city of Rouen and to the Gironde region in the film’s second part develop a more complex narrative of friendship that portrays Adenauer as a Francophile. While the reconciliation narrative set in Paris centers on the chancellor’s function as figurehead for the Federal Republic’s “official” desire for genuine rapprochement,

56 The intermingling of the First and Second World War death tolls through World War memorials in German cities had the same—often desired—effect, for it allowed for communities of suffering without having to face the problematic aspects of the Second World War—the fact that these soldiers died in a criminal act of aggression against other European nations. 57 “Welche tiefe Symbolik liegt darin, dass auf einem deutschen Soldatenfriedhof nahe Versailles französische Soldaten das Gewehr präsentieren, als der deutsche Bundeskanzler die Opfer seines Volkes ehrt. Hier ruhen Soldaten, die im Zweiten Weltkrieg gefallen sind.” Two Nations Reconcile, 15:56.

198 Staging West German Democracy the following segment of the film capitalizes on Adenauer’s personal values and traits that are used to highlight a shared cultural heritage with France. The film now explores Adenauer’s Rhinish-Catholic background and its kinship with French culture. In that process, the narrative through numerous ecclesiastic references and symbols underlines de Gaulle’s and Adenauer’s common heritage as practicing Catholics. This aspect emerges as a central facet of the film’s symbolic language of masculine leadership. As Adenauer tours Rouen, the film’s transformation of FrancoGerman memory spaces continues. The opening commentary’s admission that the city had been “victim of German grenades during WWII” (18:42), sets a scene for Adenauer to overwrite this memory with images that reference a cultural kinship between the two nations. A sequence of Adenauer touring the local cathedral (19:01–19:44) reminds the audience of Cologne Cathedral and evokes the shared Gothic architectural heritage, linked by the practicing Catholics Adenauer and de Gaulle. As the journey continues to the Gironde region, Adenauer visits the Château de la Brède, once the residence of the Enlightenment philosopher Montesquieu. Setting Adenauer sharply apart from the previous, predominantly totalitarian German political traditions embodied by Wilhelm II or Hitler, this sequence stylizes Adenauer as a democratic statesman who is close to the French philosopher’s ideas in spirit: “A close kinship in spirit is perceptible as Dr. Adenauer puts down his name in the guestbook of Château de la Brède” (23:08).58 With the Rouen and Gironde episodes underlining shared cultural values and traditions, the film in its third segment builds in powerful visual language towards a conclusion staged at two important FrancoGerman memory spaces: first, a joint military parade on a former First World War battlefield near Mourmelon in the Champagne region, and second, a joint mass celebrated in the cathedral of Reims. To the audience, this third segment provides striking images of Adenauer’s success in developing Franco-German rapprochement, and visual confirmation that those policies are already bearing fruit. With its imagery of already existing military cooperation, the military parade by French and West German army forces on the very ground that had seen the devastating First World War battles of attrition now complements the symbolisms of Franco-German atonement, reconciliation, and shared cultural values established in the film’s

58 “Eine enge Geistesverwandtschaf wird sichtbar, während Dr. Adenauer seinen Namen in das Gästebuch des Chateau de la Brède schreibt.” Two Nations Reconcile, 23:08.

The Reconciliation Discourse 199 arrival and memorial segments. This military partnership, celebrated in a critical Franco-German memory space, represents the ultimate inversion of the two countries’ troubled past. A commentary prepares the audience for the coming “political and symbolic climax of the state visit” (26:02).59 Sentimental, staged shots of a lone elderly French veteran maintaining a German war cemetery enhance the sense of respect and even affection between the Federal Republic and France. The audience is then presented with images of German and French troops, together with tanks, assembled for the parade. De Gaulle and Adenauer are shown inspecting the assembled soldiers’ formations. Over long shots of regiments of French and German soldiers marching across the former First World War battlefield, the commentary reinforces the desired symbolic effect for the audience: “At this hour, the tragic history of the relations between the two nations culminates in an era of friendship and cooperation. Two nations have reassessed their relationship and found each other” (28:37).60 This passage is significant for a number of reasons. By conflating the First and Second World Wars into one coherent period of “tragedy,” the sequence bespeaks the film’s overall strategy of creating a “moral balance” between the two countries.61 In the process, one war gets likened to the other in problematic fashion, when in fact the conflicts were profoundly different in motivation, course, and effect. Secondly, the image of the modern Bundeswehr and French Army tanks jointly rolling across a First World War battlefield in a single column, going in the same direction and not towards each other, in effect charges this battlefield with new symbolic meaning. Speaking again to the film’s tendency to, in the interest of Realpolitik, provide a partisan view on the state visit that elided the voices of criticism about Adenauer’s visit, the

59 “Für den politischen und symbolträchtigen Höhepunkt des Staatsbesuches hat Präsident de Gaulle eine von traurigen Erinnerungen erfüllte Landschaft ausgewählt: die Champagne.” Two Nations Reconcile, 26:02. 60 “Die tragische Geschichte der Beziehungen zwischen den beiden Völkern mündet während dieser Augenblicke in eine Epoche der Freundschaft und Zusammenarbeit. Zwei Völker haben sich besonnen und gefunden.” Two Nations Reconcile, 28:37. 61 The strategy to access the two nations’ troubled past through ceremonies that focused on the First World War instead of the Second World War like the one at Mourmelon lived on in the 1984 ceremony at Verdun, where François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl famously joined hands to commemorate the outbreak of the First World War. Crucially, Kohl was not invited the year before when the French celebrated the landing of the Allies in Normandy without inviting the Germans. “Mitterrand and Kohl Honor Dead of Verdun,” The New York Times, September 23, 1984, https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/23/world/mitterrandand-kohl-honor-dead-of-verdun.html

200 Staging West German Democracy ceremony at Mourmelon was not unanimously approved of in France. While some contemporary commentators viewed this parade as a great gesture by de Gaulle, many of the President’s advisers were shocked at the inherent symbolism that equaled the former occupiers of Europe with an army that had fought desperately for the continent’s liberation.62 While de Gaulle’s gesture radically realigns the past with the present in problematic ways, the Franco-German parade was also a calculated display of military power at a crucial point in the Cold War. In the midst of the Berlin crisis of August 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, in the summer of 1962, West Germany and France signaled to the world with this parade that a new, central-European cornerstone of military partnership had been set. The Bundeswehr’s alliance with the battle-hardened French Chasseurs d’Afrique regiment in the film lent credence to the significance of West German military power. Having built considerable momentum from the mutual performances of reconciliation, shared cultural values and new military cooperation, Two Nations Reconcile ends with a depiction of the ecclesiastic celebration of the countries’ new friendship through a jointly celebrated mass in the cathedral of Reims. This sequence, set at yet another central FrancoGerman memory space, symbolically predicts the permanence of their reconciliation in the form of a solemn and irrevocable vow before God, delivered by Adenauer and de Gaulle. Reims and its Gothic cathedral are memory spaces that played an important role in recent Franco-German history. Since the cathedral had been the place of coronation of the French kings since the eleventh century, there is an imminent symbolic connection between the cathedral and the French nation state. Because of this symbolic value, Reims had played an important role in the world wars. The Germans shelled the cathedral twice in 1914 and damaged it so severely that it could only be fully reopened in 1938. An act without any military benefit, the shelling was interpreted as a sign of “German barbarism” by the French.63 In an act of retribution, the French killed several German POWs interned in the cathedral after the shelling. On May 7, 1945, the German Wehrmacht had to sign the unconditional surrender in Reims, an act that (after its repetition with the Soviets at Berlin-Karlshorst on

62 “Geschichte zum Anfassen: Gemeinsame Truppenparade,” Spiegel Online, http://einestages.spiegel.de/static/entry/geschichte_zum_anfassen/34935/ gemeinsame_truppenparade.html (accessed September 16, 2013). 63 “Geschichte zum Anfassen: Versöhnung in Reims,” Spiegel Online, http:// einestages.spiegel.de/static/entry/geschichte_zum_anfassen/34934/ versoehnung_in_reims.html?o=position-ASCENDING&s=0&r=48&a=4987&of= 3&c=1 (accessed September 16, 2013).

The Reconciliation Discourse 201 May 8) ended the Second World War in Europe. While the location was thus laden with memories of enmity, the cathedral also symbolized cultural kinship between the two nations. The French Gothic cathedral closely resembled Cologne’s, the foundations of which were of similar age, and equally erected on Roman ruins. Adenauer and de Gaulle, psychological “projection screens” of their respective nations,64 and as patriarchal, Catholic-Christian leaders using their shared faith as a means for peace,65 appear in this ceremony as “brothers” with a shared cultural heritage, formerly disunited by the forces of history, now committed to the ideal of a united Europe as the basis for a peaceful and productive coexistence. The commentary speaks of the “formative power of two great men” (30:58), and Adenauer and de Gaulle, who negotiated this union, are

Figure 5.2 Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle in Reims. Two Nations Reconcile. German Federal Archive. 64 Schwarz, Wochenschauen, 360. Please see chapter one for details. 65 According to de Gaulle’s adviser Pierre Maillard, who accompanied Adenauer during his state visit, “the shared Christian foundation of values played an important role in the reconciliation.” Wiegel, “Deutsch-französische Freundschaft: Am Anfang der Aussöhnung.”

202 Staging West German Democracy characterized as making “the longing of many generations” possible (31:01).66 The images and the rhetoric in this culmination overwrite the collective memory formerly attached to this location.67 Two shots of the light-flooded mosaic windows of the cathedral (suggesting the presence of God blessing this union) are accompanied by the commentary’s emphatic recapitulation for the entire film: “The way into a brighter future is open.” (31:12).68 Shots of the two politicians standing at the altar underline the impression of a vow before God, as in a symbolic union between the two nations. The analysis of key scenes makes clear that Two Nations Reconcile benefited from the Deutsche Wochenschau cameramen’s and editors’ expert filmic exploitation of the different items of Adenauer’s itinerary while in France. In their reiterative quality, both Adenauer’s and de Gaulle’s actions at these locations, all of which represented FrancoGerman memory spaces, can be characterized as performative: they relentlessly reaffirm an overarching symbolism of reconciliation. The “script” for Adenauer’s visit that was so rich in these “performances” was largely authored by de Gaulle, a fact not lost on contemporary West German media. The press commented extensively on the Reims ceremony’s scripted character. An article in the influential weekly Die Zeit of 1962 describes Adenauer as a “main actor,” who “doesn’t blunder,” and who played in a “production” directed by de Gaulle.69 The fact that exactly fifty years after the ceremony at Reims Cathedral, Angela Merkel and François Hollande repeated de Gaulle’s “script” of the event at Reims and met again in the cathedral on July 8, 2012 to commemorate Adenauer’s visit,70 speaks to the iconic character that the ceremony and its rendering in the media had assumed in subsequent decades, and that the symbolism is still considered effective.

Staging Reconciliation in The Path into the Future (1962) The Path into the Future, the film covering Charles de Gaulle’s visit to West Germany from September 4 to 9, 1962, continues the celebratory

66 “Die gestaltende Kraft zweier großer Männer, Charles de Gaulle und Konrad Adenauer, lässt die Sehnsucht vieler Generationen Wirklichkeit werden.” Two Nations Reconcile, 31:01. 67 Cf. Derix’s analysis of the state visit in its unmediated form: Derix, Bebilderte Politik, 139. 68 “Der Weg in eine glücklichere Zukunft ist frei.” Two Nations Reconcile, 31:12. 69 Josef Müller-Marein, “Das Gebet von Reims,” Die Zeit, July 13, 1962. http:// www.zeit.de/1962/28/das-gebet-von-reims 70 The events of 2012 differed from the 1962 celebration in that Hollande and Merkel did not celebrate a mass together in the cathedral. Wiegel, “Deutschfranzösische Freundschaft: Am Anfang der Aussöhnung.”

The Reconciliation Discourse 203 narrative of the emerging Franco-German reconciliation in much of the same mode as Two Nations Reconcile. This second filmic iteration of Franco-German rapprochement provides parallel images and sounds that this time are set in Germany. In the 32 min b/w film, the viewer is presented with de Gaulle’s (genuinely) enthusiastic reception in West Germany and, more important, statements suggesting the President’s own enthusiasm about Germany. The narrative is largely tailored around several crowd-welcome sequences that suggest a genuine German admiration for the French guest and the project of European integration.71 Just as in Two Nations Reconcile, these scenes take place at crucial Franco-German memory spaces, including a Thyssen steel plant in Duisburg, a military Grand Tattoo ceremony (Großer Zapfenstreich) in Brühl near Bonn,72 and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Munich. In contrast to its predecessor, this film focuses on de Gaulle rather than Adenauer. With regard to screen presence, the chancellor is relegated to a visually still dominant but largely silent presence in the background. By implication, Adenauer stands apart while viewing West Germans celebrating Charles de Gaulle, and in that process sees them validating what the film describes as the pinnacle of his postwar achievements. Initially, the Press Office had not planned to produce a film about de Gaulle’s visit. In late August of 1962, shortly before the event, there still was general consensus within the Press Office to only film material during the visit that could be integrated into a future project about the history of Franco-German relations,73 the film mentioned earlier that would appear in 1963 as Neighbors. These initial plans do not indicate to what degree the Press Office considered this state visit important. However, the Press Office carefully orchestrated the presence of media to ensure maximum coverage of the event. In order to create the impression of a jubilant reception, the Press Office arranged for the local population to line the streets, ensured that enough French flags were distributed, and that the public was informed about the French President’s route from the airport to Bonn.74 In short, the Press Office

71 Contrary to Adenauer’s reception in France, there can be little doubt that the French State President was celebrated by the Germans, who gave him an “enthusiastic reception.” Wiegel, “Deutsch-französische Freundschaft: Am Anfang der Aussöhnung.” 72 This military ceremony goes back to the Prussian army. It involves military music and a torchlight parade by a Bundeswehr honor formation. Today, the Grand Tattoo is used among other things to honor Federal Chancellors, Federal Presidents, and Defense Ministers leaving office. 73 Memo for Betz (FPO) by Brunnbauer (FPO), August 23, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 74 Minutes by Dr. Ilgner (FPO), August 23, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669).

204 Staging West German Democracy did everything to ensure a reception of the French State President that would look impressive in the press, on television, and in newsreel coverage. The Deutsche Wochenschau was given direct access to the event in the process. Wilhelm Luppa again took over as head cameraman in charge of covering the visit. Luppa had originally been assigned for the job to collect material for a “full-length biography” on Adenauer to be finished by the time of his resignation,75 but that project had been dropped in August of 1962.76 Therefore, the Deutsche Wochenschau originally ordered Luppa to stay close to Adenauer and de Gaulle during the entire visit, “in order to shoot good images, most importantly of Adenauer.”77 Due to the nature of this assignment, the Deutsche Wochenschau camera teams had equivalent direct access to de Gaulle, which resulted in a lot of strong material centered on the charismatic French President. In a letter to the Press Office of September 12, 1962, three days after the end of de Gaulle’s visit, the Deutsche Wochenschau Editor in Chief Manfred Purzer called the footage “excellent” and “unique,” and strongly suggested using the material for a dedicated film.78 Under the impression of the public enthusiasm that de Gaulle had created during his visit, the Press Office changed plans. By September 28, the agency had decided to produce a dedicated film on the visit, and asked the Deutsche Wochenschau for a pre-calculation.79 In order to capitalize on the still ongoing public momentum after the event, Betz asked the Deutsche Wochenschau on October 4 to start working on the film even before the contract was signed and argued “a further delay would take away from the current relevance of the film and therefore negatively affect its publicity value.”80 This assessment aptly illustrates

75 Letter by Purzer (DW) to Luppa (DW), August 9, 1962 (DW Archive). 76 Such a film was already being made by a Munich-based, private competitor, the Insel-Film company. Letter by Wiers and Beyer (DW) to Insel–Film GmbH Munich, August 20, 1962 (DW Archive). Ultimately, after initially dropping the project, the Deutsche Wochenschau still decided to make such a film, 1963’s In the Service of the Fatherland. 77 “Bei der Rundreise kommt es uns vor allem darauf an, daß Sie in der Nähe de Gaulles und Adenauers bleiben, um gute Studien – in erster Linie von Adenauer – zu schießen.” Letter by Purzer (DW) to Luppa (DW), August 9, 1962 (DW Archive). 78 Letter by Purzer/Beyer (DW) to Betz (FPO), September 12, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 79 Pre-Calculation for the documentary film Päsident de Gaulle in der Bundesrepublik, (DW) September 28, 1962. BArchiv B145/4669. 80 “Eine weitere Verzögerung würde jedoch die aktuelle Bedeutung des Films stark mindern und dadurch auch seinen publizistischen Wert.” Letter by Betz (FPO) to Wiers (DW), October 4, 1962 (DW Archive).

The Reconciliation Discourse 205 how developments in political circumstances often directly impacted the conditions under which PR films were made. Given these developments, the Press Office came to see the film as an augmentation of Two Nations Reconcile for the domestic market. By then, the Press Office and Deutsche Wochenschau had settled on a length of 800m and a fixed price of DM 50,000.81 For a detailed understanding of the Press Office’s ambitions for the film one must take a closer look at the Press Office’s interventions into the production process. In order to make sure that the documentary contained the desired political statements, the Deutsche Wochenschau sent Betz the transcripts of all of Adenauer’s and de Gaulle’s speeches that were recorded during the visit and asked him to underline the parts he wanted in the film.82 The Deutsche Wochenschau proposed a number of titles, all of which suggested a momentous turn in FrancoGerman relations in such terms as: Two Nations-One Goal (Zwei VölkerEin Ziel), and A Nation Seals the Friendship (Ein Volk besiegelt die Freundschaft).83 By October 29, 1962, the final title The Path Into the Future was chosen.84 After the Deutsche Wochenschau presented a rough cut in Bonn on September 26, 1962, the film underwent extensive editing in line with the Press Office’s wishes. In a two-page statement, the agency outlined the desired narrative arc of the film, requested the inclusion of certain speeches made by de Gaulle and Minister President of BadenWürttemberg Kurt Georg Kiesinger, and changed the order of different scenes it found the film had sequenced inaccurately. The most significant changes concerned shots of German policemen and the Bundeswehr, with the apparent goal of toning down visual references to the German militaristic, Third Reich past. Regarding the depiction of the Bundeswehr at a military Grand Tattoo (Großer Zapfenstreich) ceremony in de Gaulle’s honor, the Press Office argued “the Zapfenstreich-scene at Bruehl Palace should be presented in as low-key and contained a manner as possible. [. . .] Marching-scenes are to be avoided.” The Press Office also requested fewer scenes depicting West German police.85

81 “Genehmigungsverfügung 827-1-64 V,” (FPO), October 5, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 82 Letter by Wiers and Purzer (DW) to Betz (FPO), October 11, 1962 (DW Archive). 83 Telex by Purzer (DW)to Betz (FPO), October 15, 1962 (DW Archive). 84 Letter by Wiers and Purzer (DW) to Betz (FPO), November 6, 1962 (DW Archive). 85 “die zapfenstreich-szene in schloss bruehl soll so dezent [. . .] und zurueckhaltend wie eben moeglich gestaltet werden. [. . .] auf marschszenen soll verzichtet werden.“ Telex by Stercken (FPO) to Referat V/2 (FPO), October 3, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669).

206 Staging West German Democracy A second complex of requested changes pertained to images that could give the impression of revisionist tendencies. The Press Office therefore ordered the cut of a poster by the Sudeten Germans, a former German ethnic minority in Bohemia, Mähren, and Silesia who were expelled in the aftermath of the Second World War. The Sudeten Germans, whose political interest group in 1962 still demanded the restitution of their lost territory, represented political goals that ran counter to the Press Office’s desired image of the Federal Republic as a state that was free of revisionist ambition. It argued that the scene would undoubtedly “arouse unnecessary resentments in France.”86 As was the case with Two Nations Reconcile, a symbolic FrancoGerman cooperation in the film’s production was important to the Press Office, in order to further strengthen the film’s message of reconciliation. There were even initial plans to release the film commercially in France with the help of the French newsreel industry. However, by November 1962, these plans had failed.87 One major obstacle was that de Gaulle was accompanied by a French camera team while in Germany, as the French planned to produce their own documentary on the visit. Even if the actual amount of Franco-German cooperation was quite low during the production, the Press Office insisted that the film’s opening titles claimed “a Deutsche Wochenschau GmbH production in co-operation with Gaumont Actualités.”88 Ultimately, the main aspect of cooperation between the two newsreel companies was that the Deutsche Wochenschau obtained access to film material from Gaumont to augment its own footage.89 The film was released in December of 1962 with an initial order of 100 16mm copies90 to be distributed to the usual non-commercial distribution channels, such as the Landesfilmdienste, and the Catholic and Protestant film outlets.91 Due to the nature of the topic, the film also had

86 “das plakat der sudetendeutschen sollte verschwinden, es weckt in frankreich unnoetige ressentiments.“ Telex by Stercken (FPO) to Referat V/2 (FPO), October 3, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 87 Letter by Wiers/Beyer (DW) to Betz (FPO), November 20, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 88 “Eine Produktion der Deutschen Wochenschau GmbH in Zusammenarbeit mit Gaumont Actualités.” Letter by Wiers/Beyer (DW) to Betz (FPO), November 23, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 89 Letter by Wiers/Beyer (DW) to Betz (FPO), November 20, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 90 Letter by Betz (FPO) to Dt. Reportagefilm, December 11, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 91 “Genehmigungsverfügung” by Betz (FPO), December 3, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669).

The Reconciliation Discourse 207 a considerable number of copies made in French. These were intended for distribution through diplomatic outlets of the Federal Republic in France and French-speaking countries in Africa. A French 35mm copy was made for the German embassy in Paris in December of 1962,92 and in January of 1963, twenty-four 16mm copies of the French version were sent to German embassies in France, the French embassy in Bonn, German embassies in Belgium and different African countries.93 A further four copies were sent to different German diplomatic missions abroad by May of 1963.94 This effort indicates that the film was intended to be used extensively in France and French-speaking countries to present a desired image of the Federal Republic. Due to de Gaulle’s tangible enthusiasm for the Franco-German reconciliation, the film was PR gold to the Press Office. In Simone Derix’s insightful analysis of de Gaulle’s state visit to the Federal Republic, she argues: “[. . .] de Gaulle did not travel to the Federal Republic to have a tour of the new state. On the contrary, he traveled to the former enemy territory in order to bring to the West Germans’ attention what Germany had become.”95 In the process, Derix argues that de Gaulle deliberately planned his trip to “overwrite” collective memory with images that he created.96 The following analysis of key scenes shows that the film emphasizes this effect in its narrative. In The Path into the Future, de Gaulle’s mediated “images” consistently reference reconciliation, cooperation, and the celebration of a new partnership between the two countries. The aforementioned German enthusiasm for de Gaulle had in large part to do with the fact that the President frequently addressed the crowds in German, occasions during which he repeatedly signaled a French admiration for the German nation in general, and for its most recent West German incarnation and its chancellor in particular. The film positions de Gaulle as an outsider speaking about how West Germany’s embrace of Adenauer’s policies have positioned a former enemy as a respected and equal partner in Europe. It thereby provides a French voice that directly addresses and relives pressure from problem complexes that preoccupied a German movie audience, such as the Nazi past, or the intrinsically problematic issue of expressing national

92 “Genehmigungsverfügung” by Betz (FPO), December 14, 1962; letter by Betz (FPO) to Dt. Reportagefilm, December 17, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669). 93 Letter by Dt. Reportagefilm to Betz (FPO), February 16, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4669). 94 “Genehmigungsverfügung” by Brunnbauer (FPO), May 30, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4669). 95 Derix, Bebilderte Politik, 139. 96 Derix, Bebilderte Politik, 138.

208 Staging West German Democracy pride after 1945. Through his praise of the “new Germany” in the film, de Gaulle reinforces the audience’s positive self-image that in other PR films is built solely from projecting on Adenauer. This decisively sharpens the film’s emotional appeal. The film’s positive image of the “new Germany” that de Gaulle repeatedly underscores is firmly embedded into the European idea. In order to illustrate this effect, it is helpful to examine the film’s opening which shows de Gaulle’s enthusiastic reception at Bonn market square in front of the town hall. An establishing shot depicts de Gaulle and Adenauer mingling with the crowd and walking towards the camera. It then cuts to a shot of spectators holding plaques with slogans such as “Vive la France,” and “We want the European Federation” (0:09).97 A medium shot of young men waving French flags to the ambient sound of enthusiastic “Vive la France” calls follows, which leads into rapid and unsteady cuts of handheld shots in medium close-up of de Gaulle in the jubilant crowd. Leaving the scene in Bonn, the opening then cuts to a visually striking long shot filmed from above that depicts de Gaulle encircled by enthusiastic West German factory workers. The celebratory images suggest emotional immediacy to the viewer, and together with the soundtrack of the crowds’ cheering of “Vive de Gaulle” and “Vive la France” they create the impression of a jubilant celebration of European integration. By the time that the title and the credits roll, the audience has already been invited to participate in the celebration. Many settings of the film, such as de Gaulle’s arrival at the airport, visits to cathedrals, or rides in open cars through cheering crowds, visually complement its precursor Two Nations Reconcile. During de Gaulle’s arrival at Bonn/Wahn airport, the commentary explains de Gaulle’s former position as leader of the resistance movement against Germany during the Second World War, and that he “came over the Rhine” (1:19) to reciprocate Federal President Heinrich Lübke’s and Konrad Adenauer’s visits.98 The Rhine river, both a disputed natural barrier between the nations and at the same time an archetype of German identity, serves as a metonymic symbol at this juncture, calling up the entire history of Franco-German animosities for the audience. Derix explains that starting with Robert Schumann’s visit to the Federal Republic in 1950, the Federal Republic tried to “stage” the river “as a

97 “Wir wollen den europäischen Bundesstaat.” The Path into the Future, Deutsche Wochenschau 1962, 0:09. 98 “Der Präsident der fünften Republik, General Charles de Gaulle, im Zweiten Weltkrieg das Haupt der französischen résistance, kam über den Rhein, um die Besuche des Bundespräsidenten und des Bundeskanzlers zu erwidern.” The Path into the Future, 1:26.

The Reconciliation Discourse 209 shared connector” instead of a dividing line during state visits, especially in regard to France, noting that: “At the same time, it stood for the European cooperation, which had been developing since the 1950s.”99 The film’s use of de Gaulle’s image crossing the Rhine with hands outstretched in friendship re-connotes the river exactly in this way. A shot of the Mercedes with de Gaulle on its way to Bonn, passing rows of cheering Germans, visually recreates initial triumphant images that Two Nations Reconcile presented of Adenauer’s reception in Paris. A clearly visible Renault sign on a house in the background (5:34) alludes to the economic dimension of the Franco-German partnership. The commentary again refers to the precursor film by likening Adenauer’s “via triumphalis” in Paris from Two Nations Reconcile to a “Tour d’Allemagne” for de Gaulle (5:39). To underline the impression of a diplomatic triumph for de Gaulle, the sequence is scored with festive music and a steady soundtrack of a roaring crowd. In a striking scene, The Path into the Future then reports on the grand tattoo (Großer Zapfenstreich) ceremony that concluded a festive reception for de Gaulle at Augustusburg Palace (6:59–9:22). In 1962, the ceremony was an inherently problematic German memory space, as it connoted both Prussian and Third Reich military traditions. The grand tattoo was reinstated in the Bundeswehr in 1956/7, and was part of a larger development within the army to reintroduce military rituals and to publicly perform them.100 Especially with regard to the Press Office’s admonition to keep this part of the film brief in mind, the scene is remarkable for the imagery presented. Filmed with great attention to detail, and from numerous camera angles, the depiction of the military ceremony (7:30) which, the commentary stresses, de Gaulle requested personally, is presented to the audience as an indication of de Gaulle’s great respect for the Bundeswehr. In the process, the film rewrites the military history between the two countries from one of confrontation into one of peaceful cooperation and mutual appreciation. The film employs the fact that the former head of the French resistance against Germany obviously enjoyed the traditional Prussian military ritual that had also been practiced by the Nazis to signal to the audience that Germany and France have come a long way in the reconciliation process: ten years earlier, during the visit of French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, a scene like this would have been absolutely unimaginable. The shot composition of the scene, which is almost two minutes long, is noteworthy and warrants a brief excursion into the contradictions

99 Derix, Bebilderte Politik, 181–2. 100 Donald Abenheim, Bundeswehr und Tradition: Die Suche nach dem gültigen Erbe des deutschen Soldaten (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 1989), 199.

210 Staging West German Democracy intrinsic to the West German newsreel industry after 1945. The scene was shot by cameraman Horst Grund, who had previously reported from the Second World War front lines for the Third Reich Deutsche Wochenschau.101 Grund’s shooting report from the assignment details, among other things: “60 mtrs only heads with torches from the navy – from the army – from the air force – bearing arms – the advance to the Zapfenstreich – some of it only mouth-nose-eyes steel helmet in close-up. Distinctive heads of men according to orders J [unreadable] v. Petersen.”102 Apparently, either the Deutsche Wochenschau or the Press Office had ordered these shots. Conveying a sense of fascination with the spectacle of the military ceremony, the images capture detail shots of the musicians, showing close-ups of the drums (7:57), a shot of a musician’s face filmed in close-up through the glockenspiel (8:07), as well as a medium shot of the bandmaster with the smoke of the torches theatrically rising up in the background (8:03). Several other shots, such as a close-up of a young soldier holding a torch with the light reflecting on his steel helmet (8:47) and a medium shot of marine soldiers holding torches (8:45) reference in unaltered fashion a cinematic vocabulary developed under German fascism. This imagery represents a significant, if only momentary breach in the film’s desired symbolism, one that the responsible parties apparently did not catch because such visual tropes still seemed too familiar to raise alarm. The sequence illustrates that the military imagery of the Third Reich was internalized and rededicated without critical reflection to the new, democratic context. In this way, the Grand Tattoo sequence serves as a reminder of the problematic personal and stylistic continuities between the Deutsche Wochenschau and its Third Reich namesake. To be sure, in spite of the unwanted associations, the scene was meant to elicit a diametrically different effect in its 1962 West German audience. In the logic of the film, these images “purify” the military ceremony from associations with the militaristic and fascist past through de Gaulle’s presence. Using the French President and his military past as a positive validation, the film strives to overwrite past associations and rededicate German military customs to a commonly shared body of tradition and the European cause. The commentary

101 Babette Heusterberg, “Kameramann Horst Grund – Vier Jahrzehnte für die Wochenschau,” Bundesarchiv – Kameramann Horst Grund – vier Jahrzehnte für die Wochenschau, http://www.bundesarchiv.de/oeffentlichkeitsarbeit/ bilder_dokumente/00997/index-35.html.de (accessed August 25, 2013). 102 “60mtr nur Köpfe mit Fackeln von der marine- vom Herr – von der Luftwaffe – Unter Gewehr – Anmarsch zum Zapfenstreich – Teilweise nur Mund-NaseAugen Stahlhelm im Ausschnitt. Markante Männerköpfe siehe Anweisung J[?] v. Petersen.“ Camera operator work report by Horst Grund, September 3, 1962 (DW Archive).

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offers the audience de Gaulle’s presence at the ceremony “by the wishes of the General” (7:30), as validation for this endeavor. In this, the Grand Tattoo, to this day a regular part of political protocol in the Federal Republic, is emblematic of an effort to salvage and de-contaminate military tradition that was prevalent within the Bundeswehr right after its inauguration in 1955.103 However contradictory the symbolism involved, the film’s rededicating of the Prussian military ritual to the Franco-German rapprochement is a prime example of a radically new inscription of a problematic German memory space. The film’s first symbolic center, de Gaulle coming face-to-face with some 10,000 West German citizens in Bonn market square, emphasizes the theme of a unified (Western) Europe under Franco-German leadership. The film presents de Gaulle addressing the enthusiastic crowd in German from the steps of the Bonn town hall. This scene is of central importance in setting the film’s overall tone of reconciliation, which rests largely on staging de Gaulle (and by extension, France) as quite literally holding out a hand in friendship towards Germany, and in de Gaulle professing his respect for Germany as a Kulturnation (nation of culture) equal to France. The film includes an edited 2:40 mins from the address and features Gaulle speaking slow, but grammatically accurate and fluent German. Reiterating the idea of a unified Western Europe under joint FrancoGerman leadership, de Gaulle’s speech highlights the “comprehensive and significant task” that the two countries had to accomplish together (11:44).104 After initially thanking the crowd for the “magnificent reception” (12:07),105 de Gaulle then continues: “when [I] see all of you assembled around me, when I hear your voices, I feel even more powerfully than ever before the respect and the trust, which I have in your great country, yes, in your great German nation!” (12:52).106 This tribute to the Germans in a register that the leading West German politicians consciously avoided, delivered in their own language by a French politician who had been among its most formidable enemies

103 Abenheim, Bundeswehr und Tradition, 199. 104 “Zunächst weil ich es besonders begrüße, mit den leitenden Männern Deutschlands unmittelbar in Berührung zu kommen, denn in der Welt von heute haben unsere beiden Völker ein umfassendes und bedeutsames Werk gemeinsam zu vollbringen.” The Path into the Future, 10:46. 105 “Nichts jedoch kann mich besser dazu ermutigen als der glänzende Empfang, den Sie mir alle bereiten.” The Path into the Future, 12:11. 106 “Wenn [ich] Sie alle so um mich herum versammelt sehe, wenn ich Ihre Kundgebungen höre, empfinde ich noch stärker als zuvor die Würdigung und das Vertrauen, das ich für ihr großes Volk, jawohl, für das große deutsche Volk, hege.” The Path into the Future, 12:52.

212 Staging West German Democracy during the Second World War, had a strong emotional impact on the audience. Carefully planned by de Gaulle,107 it is a gesture of reconciliation that in its directness and appeal supersedes Adenauer’s efforts for symbolic atonement during his reception in France months earlier. The absence of a language barrier creates an impression of intimacy between the two nations; de Gaulle steps not only physically but also linguistically across the Rhine. A medium shot of Adenauer vigorously nodding his head and smiling during de Gaulle’s speech (13:14) reinforces the impression of political and personal accord between Adenauer and de Gaulle. Ultimately, this scene uses de Gaulle to purify the notion of “Germanness,” and it refers to a “national substrate” untainted by the events of the Third Reich.108 Positioned at the film’s center and undoubtedly its message’s centerpiece, the film goes on to report on de Gaulle’s visit to the Thyssen steel plant in Duisburg, where he addressed a reported crowd of 3,000. Filmed in a dramatic long shot from above, the President is shown being greeted by euphoric workers chanting “Vive la France.” In the speech which he again gave in German, the French State President can be seen arguing: “The fact that Charles de Gaulle is here, and so enthusiastically applauded, testifies to how much our nations already trust each other (16:27).”109 For de Gaulle’s audience at Thyssen, and for the film’s audience of 1962, the meaning of his reference to the location was self-evident and needed no further elaboration. It refers to the fact that the Thyssen works was one of the major German armament factories in both the First and Second World Wars.110 Steel forged in this location was used as ammunition and armament against the French army. This reference is fully developed in de Gaulle’s complete speech,

107 De Gaulle, who learned German in school and during his time in Germany as a First World War POW, painstakingly prepared fourteen speeches in German, which he learned by heart. Elsa Clairon, “Das Archiv: De Gaulle in Deutschland,” Arte Karambolage, https://sites.arte.tv/karambolage/de/das-archiv-degaulle-deutschland-karambolage (accessed March 18, 2016). 108 Cf. von Schilling’s use of the term “national substrate.” Von Schilling discusses the term in the context of a German strategy to delegate guilt onto a few, obvious perpetrators in order to exonerate the many fellow travelers: “Thus also the German honor remained untainted, and a national substrate was preserved which remained untouched by the Third Reich and the events of the war.” Klaus von Schilling, Scheitern an der Vergangenheit: Das deutsche Selbstverständnis zwischen re-education und Berliner Republik (Berlin: Philo, 2002), 94. 109 “Die Tatsache dass Charles de Gaulle hier ist und von Ihnen so herzlich empfangen wird, beweist, wie unsere beiden Völker schon einander vertrauen.” The Path into the Future, 16:27. 110 Cf. Derix, Bebilderte Politik, 140.

The Reconciliation Discourse 213 which contains the following passage omitted by the film: “Today, I can say that truly what is now manufactured on the Ruhr and in this factory, evokes only regard and satisfaction in my country.”111 To complete the scene’s symbolism of reconciliation, the segment closes with images of de Gaulle mingling with the crowd of cheering Thyssen workers, again filmed from above for maximum visual impact, and suggesting a jubilant reunion of allies. The film’s commentary underlines the symbolism of reconciliation: “Already after this address it becomes clear that Charles de Gaulle rekindled a new sense of national consciousness in Germany through

Figure 5.3 De Gaulle meeting Thyssen workers. The Path into the Future (Der Weg in die Zukunft, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1962). German Federal Archive.

111 “Was heute an der Ruhr und in diesen Werken erzeugt wird, erweckt nunmehr in meinem Lande nur noch Sympathie und Befriedigung.” Charles De Gaulle, “6. September 1962 – Ansprache an die Arbeiter der Thyssen-Werke,” http:// www.charles-de-gaulle.de/6-september-1962-ansprache-an-die-arbeiter-derthyssen-werke.html (accessed October 18, 2013).

214 Staging West German Democracy this significant gesture of reconciliation” (18:19).112 At this point, the commentary depicts the French President not only as a pivotal catalyst in the new Franco-German friendship, but also of West German national self-esteem. The voice-over implies that as a result of the FrancoGerman alliance, the Federal Republic develops a new national identity. The theme of re-inscribing military memory spaces with new meaning is further developed in the film’s reporting on the de Gaulle’s visit to Munich. There, in an act mirroring Adenauer’s tribute to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe, de Gaulle can be seen laying a wreath at a similar monument in front of the still-damaged Bavarian State Chancellery. By showing images of German Wehrmacht veterans saluting in front of the ruins, and of de Gaulle shaking hands with a group of disabled German Second World War veterans in wheelchairs (25:35), the film visually suggests that old animosities are being put to rest and nothing but mutual respect remains between the former enemies. An indication of the scene’s envisioned symbolism, the West German press interpreted these handshakes as an emotional act of reconciliation between the countries.113 Through these handshakes, even the very soldiers who had once fought against France and killed its soldiers on the battlefield were invited by the French President to join in the Franco-German friendship. The film then uses footage of a reported crowd of 120,000 people holding posters for a unified Europe in front of the Feldherrnhalle to realign the collective memory of Munich as the capital of the Nazi movement: “Lovable and gorgeous is what Charles de Gaulle calls the Bavarian capital” (26:24).114 The Feldherrnhalle is a particularly problematic German memory space because it was the site of the bloody HitlerLudendorff coup of 1923, and during the Third Reich carried a plaque listing “blood witnesses” (“Blutzeugen”), names of Nazis who had died during the movement’s struggle for power before 1933. According to Derix, de Gaulle’s speech (which the film does not render with sound) and the German reactions to it can be understood as a “secularized form” of an “exorcism” of Third Reich collective memory.115 The film’s uses footage of Adenauer and de Gaulle in an open car making their way through the crowd, and of de Gaulle’s appearance on the loggia of the building to rededicate this memory space as a site that celebrates European unity.

112 “Bereits nach dieser Ansprache zeigt sich, dass Charles De Gaulle durch die große Geste der Versöhnung in Deutschland den Funken eines neuen nationalen Bewußtseins entfacht hat.” The Path into the Future, 18:19. 113 “De Gaulle lobte die Bayern” Rundschau München, September 6, 1962. 114 “Liebenswert und prachtvoll nennt Charles de Gaulle die bayerische Hauptstadt.” The Path into the Future, 26:24. 115 Derix, Bebilderte Politik, 141.

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Figure 5.4 De Gaulle shaking hands with German Second World War veterans. The Path into the Future. German Federal Archive.

The film concludes with images from the festive conclusion of de Gaulle’s visit to Germany at Ludwigsburg Castle in Baden-Württemberg, a French-style baroque palace. While the location underlines shared cultural heritage, the film features another scene of the French State President speaking in German to a young audience, highlighting the Franco-German rapprochement as a project that will benefit and be embraced by future generations. Tellingly, in his address honoring the heads of state Federal President Heinrich Lübke and de Gaulle, Minister President Kurt Georg Kiesinger can be seen highlighting not Lübke but Adenauer, “who tirelessly fights for the Franco-German friendship. God bless you” (29:32).116 The mention of Adenauer’s name elicits a roaring and spontaneous reaction from the young audience, while a cut to

116 “In Anwesenheit des Herrn Bundeskanzlers, der so unermüdlich für die deutsch-französische Freundschaft kämpft. Gott schütze Sie.” The Path into the Future, 29:37.

216 Staging West German Democracy Adenauer waving champion-like to the crowd suggests to the audience that the Franco-German reconciliation was his personal achievement. While in The Path into the Future, de Gaulle seemingly trumps Adenauer with regard to sound and screen time, several statements like this, strategically placed at the film’s beginning and end, continue to remind the audience of this core PR message found in all the films: Adenauer has devoted his years in office to building a new Germany viewed positively at home and abroad. The Path into the Future was clearly effective in conveying its message of overcoming the troubled Franco-German past and paving the way for European integration. In 1964, the film won the Award of the European Council (Preis des Europarates). Assuming intellectual ownership of the film, the Press Office argues in a memorandum on the award: “the film was critically influenced by the film department with regard to both its concept and its composition and production.”117 As the forgoing analysis of this film and its production history documents, this claim is no exaggeration. Judging by the film’s unusually large distribution numbers in French and by the granting of this award, The Path into the Future was a timely and successful effort.

Conclusion: Documents of the Manipulation of Collective memory The analysis of the two films reveals the Federal Press Office’s concerted effort to augment Adenauer’s policy of rapprochement with a filmic PR campaign that created lasting images of a “historic” turn in FrancoGerman relations. By repeatedly calling attention to the symbolism of the films’ events as “historic,” and by declaring these events as starting points of a new era of Franco-German friendship, the films aim to obtain Deutungshoheit (sovereignty of interpretation) about the recent Franco-German past. In the process, its darkest chapters, the Nazi occupation and the Holocaust, virtually disappear from this postwar master narrative. Through a deliberately crafted symbolism of reconciliation and mutual forgiveness arising from the cinematic staging of Adenauer’s and de Gaulle’s performances of reconciliation at Franco-German memory spaces, the films in 1962 provided soon-to-be iconic images that were meant to overwrite collective memory. Ironically, as the analysis of the Grand Tattoo sequence in The Path into the Future has shown, the symbolic language devoted to these new postwar democratic symbolisms at times betrayed its National Socialist origins in style and personnel. 117 “Der Film ist vom Film-Referat sowohl in der Idee wie in der Gestaltung und Herstellung maßgebend beeinflußt.” Internal memo by Six (FPO) to section – StS-, February 7, 1964 (BArchiv B145/4669).

The Reconciliation Discourse 217 As was the case with many PR films, Adenauer was personally invested in their production and evaluated the final product as well. His personal reaction to Two Nations Reconcile is reported in a letter to cameraman Wilhelm Luppa: “I especially enjoyed the film about my state visit in France, and I would like to convey my sincere thanks for these well-made images.”118 Considering the jubilant images of his reception in France, it is easy to see what Adenauer liked about the film. But as intimately involved in his administration’s PR planning and goals as he was, his enthusiasm had other reasons as well. Through their elaborate symbolism, the films were designed to induce the necessary sociopolitical shift to put the Erbfeindschaft between Germany and France to rest. Ultimately, a process of manipulation of collective memory through deliberately glossing over the nation’s most recent Second World War past in favor of confronting it, is central to the films’ memory work. Both films display a conscious strategy of realigning the collective memories of the Wehrmacht’s occupation of France, and a focus on the First World War in remembering military confrontation between the two nations, while avoiding the all too recent battlefields of the Second World War (and a discussion of Nazism, and of French involvement). For these films to effectively meet the expectations of a West German audience in1962, this memory work is characterized by a leveling of the “moral balance” between the two nations in regard to the world wars. The resulting interpretation of history casts an interesting light on the early process of European integration. It seems as if the price for European integration involved a deliberate process of forgetting and glossing over of the impact of the Nazi past on Germany and France, and these films are complicit in this process. It is highly significant in this context that the former leader of the French fight against the Nazis, de Gaulle, is shown in the films to be at the heart of the process. The PR films on the Franco-German reconciliation illustrate vividly that every manipulation of collective memory involves a falsification that silences other, often critical voices, as indicated by the Spiegel’s reporting on Adenauer’s reception in Paris. In the case of the PR films on the FrancoGerman reconciliation, this practice is particularly illustrative, as the manipulation of these shared memory spaces promised an immense reward for both nations: lasting peace and a European partnership.

118 “Sehr geehrter Herr Luppa! Vor kurzem hatte ich Gelegenheit, einige Filme über meine Besuche in befreundeten Staaten zu sehen. Der Film über meinen Staatsbesuch in Frankreich hat mir in besonderer Weise gefallen, und ich möchte Ihnen zu diesen gelungenen Aufnahmen meinen verbindlichen Dank aussprechen. Mit besten Grüßen gez. Adenauer.” Letter draft, Adenauer to Luppa (DW), September 4, 1962 (BArchiv B145/4669).

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Six The Discourse of Connectedness: Adenauer’s Bonn as Reluctant, yet Effective “World City”

Introduction In 1963, the West German ARD television network interviewed Bundestag President Eugen Gerstenmaier (CDU) in a symbolic setting: on the rooftop of the Bundestag building in Bonn.1 In the aftermath of an SPD-led Bundestag decision for a building freeze that had severely hampered Bonn’s development as capital into the early 1960s,2 preparations were now under way for a large-scale expansion of the government district in the provisional capital. With the help of a model, Gerstenmaier presented to the West German TV audience the plans for a complete overhaul of the Bundeshaus, complete with extensions, such as a new high-rise office building that later would emerge as the famous thirty-story high rise nicknamed “long Eugen” (“Langer Eugen”).3 Prompted by the interviewer’s question whether such plans would not constitute “practically a renouncement of Bonn’s provisional status, and therefore [. . .] a

1

2 3

This chapter is a significantly revised and extended version of my article: Jan Uelzmann, “Bonn, World City: Explaining the FRG’s Provisional Capital through Government-Commissioned Documentaries during the Adenauer Years,” Monatshefte 108, no. 2 (2016): 202–32. For a detailed account on the building freeze, see: Jens Krüger, Die Finanzierung der Bundeshauptstadt Bonn, 43–79. This initiative for extension, estimated at a cost of DM 132 million, projected extensive modifications and new constructions to the Federal District. “Memorandum” (Finance Ministry), July 1, 1963. BArchiv B157/3443). For a detailed account on the building activities in the Bonn federal district see: Jens Krüger, Die Finanzierung der Bundeshauptstadt Bonn.

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220 Staging West German Democracy betrayal of Berlin,”4 Gerstenmaier reiterated the Adenauer administration’s political line, like many a government official had done before him. He vehemently rejected allegations that the development plans for Bonn would come down to a renouncement of the capital Berlin, dismissively adding that he had to see to it that he had a “functioning parliament in the here and now.”5 In 1963, two years after the Berlin Wall had gone up on August 13, 1961, a reunified Germany with Berlin as capital seemed less possible than ever. Gerstenmaier therefore could make his argument with confidence: Bonn needed careful consolidation, even if Berlin still continued to occupy the West German public imaginary. This interview demonstrates that even at the end of Adenauer’s chancellorship and fourteen years into the Federal Republic, Bonn was a capital that had to be defended from wide-ranging criticisms. These did not only extend to new construction activity, any of which had to be painstakingly justified, but included the capital’s symbolic function as well. The reasons for this can be traced all the way back to the Federal Republic’s complicated founding process. The fact that this new state, which had only come together under intense political pressure from the Western Allies, named a capital that was not Berlin continued to be a hard sell to the West German public. In spite of the ossifying German division, in public perception, Bonn constituted a violation of Berlin’s quality as signifier of a formerly undivided German nation state. This chapter analyzes the Federal Press Office’s efforts at promoting the unloved capital through PR films that portray it as the effective, yet explicitly provisional political center of the newly founded West German state. The chapter’s central argument is that through their overall institutional planning, composition, editing, and commentary, the PR films on Bonn explain the new capital through a “discourse of connectedness” that emphasizes its role as a center of Western policymaking. The films describe Bonn as connected to the world through intricate diplomatic and economic ties. This characteristic stands in sharp contradiction to the films’ underlining of the city’s provincial quaintness. To argue for Bonn’s provisional, yet efficient status as capital, the films capitalize on a resulting “Bonn effect,” the unresolved dichotomy between

4

5

“Die Gegner der Neubaupläne sagen, dieses Großprojekt bedeutet praktisch einen Verzicht auf den provisorischen Charakter der Bundeshauptstadt und damit, um mit ganz großen Worten gleichzeitig zu kommen, einen Verrat an Berlin. Was sagen Sie dazu?” “Interview des deutschen Fernsehens mit dem Bundestagspräsidenten Dr. Eugen Gerstenmaier,” n.d. (BArchiv, B157/3443). “Aber ich muss jetzt darauf sehen, daß ich ein heute und jetzt funktionierendes Parlament habe.” “Interview des deutschen Fernsehens mit dem Bundestagspräsidenten Dr. Eugen Gerstenmaier,” n.d. (BArchiv, B157/3443).

The Discourse of Connectedness 221 the cobblestoned old town and the modern architecture of the buildings in the federal district, as well as between these realms’ respective inhabitants.6 This chapter examines two films, each developing different aspects of the discourse of connectedness. Finished in April of 1961, Visiting Bonn: A Report from the Political Life in the Federal Capital (Zu Gast in Bonn: Ein Bericht aus dem politischen Leben der Bundeshauptstadt) focuses on visits by international dignitaries and heads of state to the provincial capital. In contrast, Koblenzer Strasse 99–103: A Report on the Daily Routine of the Foreign Office (Koblenzer Strasse 99–103: Ein Bericht über den Alltag des Auswärtigen Amts, 1961/1963), finished in its first version in September of 1961,7 instead emphasizes the city’s political and cultural reach around the globe. It describes Bonn’s worldwide political influence as emanating from the Bonn Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt), the street address of which forms the film’s title. In addressing opposite aspects of the discourse of connectedness, the films form complementary parts. By exploring Bonn’s local atmosphere, its democratic functions, and its impact around the world, the West German capital emerges as a “world city” in spite of its provincial nature and provisional status, which perfectly fits the Federal Republic’s political ambitions during the Cold War as a peaceful and reliable partner in Western political, economic, and defense networks. At a time when Berlin was at the center of world news due to the escalating Cold War tensions of summer 1961, both films strive to focus the attention on Bonn.8 The history of the decision for Bonn as the provisional capital of the Federal Republic, as well as of the city’s development from that position to the de facto permanent capital of West Germany until the German Reunification of 1989/90, is well established in the scholarship and need not be repeated here.9 What has not been told in great detail so far,

6

7 8

9

More on the “Bonn effect” can be found in: Jan Uelzmann, “Bonn, Divided City: Cityscape as Political Critique in Wolfgang Koeppen’s Das Treibhaus and Günther Weisenborn’s Auf Sand gebaut,” Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies 50, no. 4 (2014): 438. In 1963, the film was updated to reflect changes in the federal government and world politics, yet without directly addressing the Wall. There is no archival evidence that the Berlin Wall impacted the distribution of Visiting Bonn, which by August 1961 had just been finished, or the production and distribution of Koblenzer Strasse, even during the 1963 re-editing of the film. See for example: Reiner Pommerin, Von Berlin nach Bonn: Die Alliierten, die Deutschen und die Hauptstadtfrage nach 1945 (Cologne: Böhlau, 1989); Klaus Dreher, Treibhaus Bonn, Schaubühne Berlin; Dietrich Höroldt, 25 Jahre Bundeshauptstadt Bonn: Eine Dokumentation (Bonn: Röhrscheid Verlag, 1974); Helmut Vogt, “Der Herr Minister wohnt in einem Dienstwagen auf Gleis 4”: Die Anfänge des Bundes in Bonn 1949/50 (Bonn: Stadt Bonn, Stadtarchiv, 1999); Wiesemann, “Die Gründung des deutschen Weststaats.”

222 Staging West German Democracy however, is the story of how the federal government through its Press Office strove to promote and defend the decision to make the provincial town on the Rhine the seat of government. This chapter demonstrates that the PR films played a crucial part in that effort. The choice to select and maintain Bonn as capital cannot be understood without an awareness of the intense moral and practical dilemmas West German politicians faced as they undertook the formal steps towards the founding of a separate West German state.10 The West German Minister Presidents were largely negatively predisposed towards a separate Western state as stipulated by the so-called “Frankfurt Documents” handed over to them on July 1, 1948 by the Western Allies, since there were fears that this would inevitably deepen the German division.11 From the beginning of the first meeting of the Minister Presidents to discuss the Frankfurt Documents, at the so-called “Rittersturzconference” on July 8–10, 1948, there ensued a heated debate.12 In short, the West German politicians did not want to cast the first stone by formally sealing the intra-German division through the writing of a constitution for a separate state that had an air of permanence.13 In the words of Peter Altmeier, then the Minister President of RhinelandPalatinate, “On the one hand there was the awareness that for the first time after the downfall, there was a chance to unite at least the larger part of our German people. On the other hand, considering the stance of the fourth occupational power, the Soviet Union, there was the anxious question whether this would not deepen or even eternalize the division.”14 Especially in popular perception, as the political and human drama of the Cold War unfolded during the Adenauer years, Bonn became the symbol for the growing distance and alienation between the two

10 For a more detailed discussion of the Federal Republic’s “founding dilemma,” please refer to chapter one. 11 See for details: Francesco Roberg, “Die Koblenzer Rittersturzkonferenz vom Juli 1948: Ein Meilenstein auf dem Weg zur Bundesrepublik Deutschland,” Manuscript, Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Rheinland-Pfalz, 2008; Wiesemann, “Die Gründung des deutschen Weststaats,” 141; Dreher, Treibhaus Bonn, Schaubühne Berlin, 41. 12 Dreher, Treibhaus Bonn, Schaubühne Berlin, 41. 13 Dreher, Treibhaus Bonn, Schaubühne Berlin, 41; Wiesemann, “Die Gründung des deutschen Weststaats,” 124. 14 “Auf der einen Seite die Erkenntnis, daß hier erstmals nach dem Zusammenbruch die Chance des Zusammenschlusses wenigstens des grösseren Teiles unseres deutschen Volkes geboten wurde. Auf der anderen Seite die bange Frage, ob dadurch angesichts der Haltung der vierten Besatzungsmacht – Sowjetrussland – nicht die Spaltung vertieft oder gar verewigt würde.” Qtd. in Roberg, “Die Koblenzer Rittersturzkonferenz,” 11.

The Discourse of Connectedness 223 Germanies. Even if the founding of the Federal Republic went forward with great speed and often also with enthusiasm, the question of the Germans living in the Soviet Zone, and the desire to reunite with them as soon as possible, were always on West Germans’ minds. As a consequence, these conflicting desires created an innate contradiction in the West German political new beginning. As argued in chapter one, the role of managing these conflicting desires would come to determine Adenauer’s policies throughout his entire chancellorship, and this problem was one of the constitutive aspects of the PR films’ overall message of reconstruction and Western integration. What followed from this dilemma was a narrative stance of the Deutsche Wochenschau-produced newsreels and PR films that defended Adenauer’s policy of Western integration as a sheer necessity. At the same time, however, this stance always balanced these practical political considerations against the desire to bring about German unification as soon as possible. For these reasons, Bonn as capital had to be explicitly portrayed as provisional. Bonn, the PR films insisted, was a temporary solution to bridge the allegedly short amount of time it would take to reunite Germany and to reclaim the all-German capital Berlin. The former Reich capital continued to loom large in the public imaginary. Bonn in popular perception became a central symbol of a divided Germany on hold—a “waiting room.” This was a common metaphor used both by the writer Erich Kuby and journalist Marion Gräfin Dönhoff.15 Before the building of the Berlin Wall created a more or less stable status quo regarding the division, an overwhelming majority of West Germans throughout the 1950s and early 1960s still believed that the capital would soon be moved “back to Berlin”—a book with title Von Bonn nach Berlin (From Bonn to Berlin) published by West Berlin’s Lord Mayor Willy Brandt in 1957 explicitly catered to this sentiment.16 As a result, Bonn was widely met with disinterest or even outright criticism by the West German public. From its beginnings as capital onward, Bonn was not treated as a solution that would last a long time. For example, right after the Parliamentary Council (Parlamentarischer Rat), which had been formed to lay the organizational groundwork for the formation of the separate

15 See Erich Kuby, Das ist des Deutschen Vaterland, 70 Millionen in zwei Wartesälen (Stuttgart: Scherz and Goverts, 1957); Marion Gräfin Dönhoff, Im Wartesaal der Geschichte (Berlin: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt DVA, 1993). “Waiting room Germany” was a common metaphor used to describe the preliminary air of the two German states, while a possible reunification in the near future had not been yet ruled out. 16 Willy Brandt, Von Bonn nach Berlin (Berlin: Arani, 1957).

224 Staging West German Democracy Western state, had voted to make Bonn seat of the capital on May 10, 1949, most newspapers outside of Bonn rejected the new provisional capital seat.17 Of 150 German newspapers, initially only ten were in favor of Bonn, in addition to many critical comments in the foreign press.18 In the mid-1950s, with political change in the Eastern Bloc under way, West Germans increasingly started to view Bonn as an obstacle to overcome with regard to reunification. Under the impression of the Hungary uprising, the fall of 1956 even saw a public discussion of moving the capital “back to Berlin” in order to signal solidarity with the revolutionary events in the Eastern Bloc.19 On October 18, 1956, during the buildup leading to the uprising on October 23, Die Zeit journalist Marion Gräfin Dönhoff demanded in a headline “Now or Never: Still within this Year must Berlin become Capital.”20 At the same time, Gerd Bucerius, co-founder of the weekly Die Zeit and a CDU representative, publicly advocated for a move of the capital seat to West Berlin by May of 1957 as a sign to the East that the Federal Republic was genuinely interested in unification.21 Adenauer dismissed this initiative by arguing to Bucerius that “it is impossible that a federal government takes its seat in an occupied city entirely encircled by Russians.”22 Apart from Adenauer’s opposition to it, Allied prerogatives about Berlin rendered the initiative an impossibility.23 Apart from these symbolic considerations, a general tenor of criticism throughout the Adenauer years, and one still reflected in Gerstenmaier’s 1963 interview mentioned earlier, was the belief that no more money should be wasted on a capital that would eventually be abandoned for Berlin. In 1951, an Allensbach poll revealed that 76 percent believed that

17 Höroldt, 25 Jahre Bundeshauptstadt Bonn, 54. 18 Hermann Wandersleb, “Die Berufung Bonns zur vorläufigen Bundeshauptstadt,” Bonner Geschichtsblätter 23 (1969): 8; Freiherr Rüdiger von Wechmar, “Bemerkungen Zu Bonns Berufung zur vorläufigen Bundeshauptstadt,” in Festschrift für Hermann Wandersleb zur Vollendung des 75. Lebensjahres ed. VictorEmanuel Preusker (Bonn: Deutscher Bundes-Verlag GmbH, 1970), 617. Both qtd in Höroldt, 25 Jahre Bundeshauptstadt Bonn, 54. 19 Krüger, Die Finanzierung der Bundeshauptstadt Bonn, 58-66; Diethelm Prowe, Weltstadt in Krisen: Berlin 1949-1958 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1973) 245-256. 20 Marion Gräfin von Dönhoff, “Jetzt Oder Nie! Noch in diesem Jahr muß Berlin Hauptstadt werden,” Die Zeit, October 18, 1956, http://www.zeit.de/1956/42/ Jetzt-oder-nie 21 Attachment to letter by Gerd Bucerius to Konrad Adenauer, October 23, 1956 (BArchiv B136/4668). 22 “Es ist unmöglich, dass eine Bundesregierung ihren Sitz nimmt in einer besetzten Stadt, die nur von Russen umgeben ist.” Letter by Adenauer to Bucerius, October 15, 1956 (BArchiv B136/4668). 23 List of factors speaking against a move to Berlin (Federal Chancellery), February 1, 1957 (BArchiv B136/4669).

The Discourse of Connectedness 225 “a lot of money was wasted” in and on Bonn.24 Following an SPD-led campaign against the continued building of what the party polemically referred to as “office palaces,”25 a building freeze was even instated on October 3, 1956, which prevented any new construction of federal buildings in Bonn into the early 1960s.26 That the PR films on Bonn coincide with the aftermath of the building freeze period, is no coincidence. During the building freeze period, the pressing need for office space in Bonn was compensated by the federation through largescale renting, which accounted for at times chaotic circumstances of accommodation for the ministries.27 Consequently, after the abolition of the building freeze in 1959, Bonn entered a period during which significant new constructions were planned by several ministries to meet the still rapidly increasing demand in office space and consolidate the formerly makeshift accommodations.28 Apart from symbolical considerations about the federal capital seat, criticisms of Bonn frequently revolved around the cost explosion that took place as the capital consolidated itself throughout the Adenauer years. The true amount of expenses necessary for implementing the capital was initially downplayed as Bonn presented itself to the capital commission of the Parliamentary Council that was tasked with selecting a capital out of the contender cities Frankfurt am Main, Bonn, Kassel, and Stuttgart in 1949. In 1956, the total cost of the building measures for the federal district was already estimated to be about DM 70.6 million,29 about eighteen times the originally projected DM 3.8 million that Bonn had quoted as a “one-time cost” to the Parliamentary Council during its application in April of 1949.30 This did not go unnoticed by the general public, and reportedly, tourist boats played the popular carnival song “Who Is Going To Pay For This” (“Wer soll das bezahlen”) through their

24 “Die Meinung über Bonn, 1951–1955,” Allensbach Institute, 16 (KAS Archiv I-172-035/1). 25 Pommerin, Von Berlin nach Bonn, 201. 26 The building freeze came to an end in 1959. Krüger, Die Finanzierung der Bundeshauptstadt Bonn, 68. For a detailed account on the building freeze in Bonn, see: Krüger, Die Finanzierung der Bundeshauptstadt Bonn, 43–79. 27 Krüger, Die Finanzierung der Bundeshauptstadt Bonn, 45. 28 A 1962 memorandum from the building department of the Finance Ministry lists no less than seven new building projects filed by different ministries and other governing bodies filed in 1960, such as the Ministries of Justice, Defense, Finances, Agriculture, the Office of the Federal President, and the Federal Press Office. “Sprechzettel Referat III b/2,” October 17, 1962 (BArchiv B157/3444). See for details: Krüger, Die Finanzierung der Bundeshauptstadt Bonn, 43–79. 29 Memorandum “Die Bonner Bundesbauten” (Federal Building Administration), December 5, 1956 (BArchiv, B157/336). 30 Höroldt, 25 Jahre Bundeshauptstadt Bonn, 51.

226 Staging West German Democracy loudspeakers as they cruised down the Rhine and passed the Bundestag under construction.31 Hence, there was constant pressure on the Adenauer administration to demonstrate that in Bonn, federal money was used wisely and economically. By 1960, faced with Bonn’s persistent image problem and the pressing need for new construction in the federal district, the Press Office finally saw a manifest need to intervene more aggressively into Bonn’s public perception. This led to several PR films on Bonn, some of which were produced through private companies, while others, like the two PR films discussed below, were Deutsche Wochenschau productions. In all of them, Bonn had to be presented as the “right capital” for a time during which West Germans were torn between an all-German imaginary and the harsh Cold War realities of the day. Even after the Berlin Wall of 1961 made a move to West Berlin even more unlikely than before, West Germans now needed to be persuaded to identify with their provisional capital and accept that it would hold this status for an indeterminate amount of time. Bonn therefore needed to be presented as an explicitly provisional solution that was financially responsible and which, in the event of a reunification in some unknown future, could easily be abandoned for Berlin.

Thematic Precursors and Contemporaries As the review of Bonn’s image problems would suggest, promoting Bonn through regular newsreel segments was an objective that was part and parcel of the Press Office’s agenda all throughout the Adenauer period. In producing the PR films, the Deutsche Wochenschau and the Press Office could therefore revisit and seek inspiration from earlier, shorter attempts to promote the capital through frequent reports in the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau and Welt im Bild newsreel segments and from short television productions that advertised Bonn. An early example of these efforts is a 2-minute Welt im Bild report entitled “Behind the Scenes” (“Hinter den Kulissen”) of 1953. Concentrating solely on the German Bundeshaus, the report presents the West German parliament building as the center of highly organized activity to efficiently build up the new West German state.32 While a shot of a sign with the humorous reference “the impossible will be done at once, wonders take a little longer” seems to ask the audience for patience (2:10),33 the film in a playful tone emphasizes the efforts under 31 Buslei-Wuppermann, Hans Schwippert, 1899–1973: Von der Werkkunst zum Design (Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag, 2007), 113. 32 “Hinter den Kulissen,” Welt im Bild No. 79, 1953, Deutsche Wochenschau Archive. 33 “Unmögliches wird sofort erledigt, Wunder dauern etwas länger.” “Hinter den Kulissen,” 2:10.

The Discourse of Connectedness 227 way to bring the young West German democracy on track. A shot of a main power switch being engaged connotes energy (1:23), while images of a secretary handling two phones at the same time (1:38), and of aides rushing down stairs with stacks of documents (2:12), all emphasize visually that the federal government is hard at work. During the first half of the 1950s, many such Bonn-sequences that emphasized careful planning and sober organization were featured in the Deutsche Wochenschau-produced newsreels, as the main motivation was to dispel the impression of wasteful spending in Bonn. In the second half of the 1950s, the Press Office began to plan short and self-contained PR productions for television, and in the process also became more creative. In 1957, the Press Office planned a 13-minute short feature entitled Romantic Bonn (Romantisches Bonn) with the Deutsche Wochenschau competitor company IFAG. Based on extensive audience research by the Press Office, and shot in color for a comparatively high projected cost of DM 80,000, this project was to inform the West German public about Bonn in the entertaining guise of a romantic comedy.34 The film was especially intended to be broadcast on American television.35 It was shot in and around Bonn with popular actress Eva Pflug, Rock and Roll DJ Chris Howland, and Ralph Lothar in the lead roles.36 In 1961 and 1962, the Press Office produced a second film on Bonn for the domestic television market through IFAG. Released in 1962, Reporting from the Federal Capital (Aus der Bundeshauptstadt) featured several international journalists’ (scripted) perspectives on Bonn. The journalists each positively highlighted distinct aspects about the city, such as the efficiency of the administration, its pro-European atmosphere, or the federal government’s claim to represent East Germans as well.37 According to Press Office records, the film was very successful.38 While these PR efforts suggested that the government was hard at work in implementing a frugal, yet functioning capital as dictated by current Cold War circumstances, to underline Bonn’s provisionality, recurrent newsreel segments on Berlin kept the memory of the old allGerman capital alive. This balanced the federal advocacy for Bonn with

34 Confidential memorandum (FPO), October 22, 1956 (BArchiv B145/209). 35 Letter by Franck (FPO) to Trossmann (Bundestag), April 13, 1957 (BArchiv B145/209). 36 “Sonne spielt in neuem Bonn-Film mit,” General-Anzeiger, April 30, 1957. 37 Film synopsis, IFAG, February 16, 1962 (BArchiv B145/2876). 38 “Genehmigungsverfügung” by Freibueter (FPO), December 13, 1962 (BArchiv B145/2876). There is no archival evidence suggesting any thematic or production overlap between the Press Office’s TV productions, produced by the IFAG company, and the Deutsche Wochenschau produced PR films on Bonn.

228 Staging West German Democracy the commentary that the new capital seat was nevertheless a provisional solution. A Neue Deutsche Wochenschau report entitled “On the Road with the Sampler Case” (“Mit dem Musterkoffer unterwegs”) of October 1956 informed about the “Berlin week,” during which the Western “frontier city” presented itself, its culture, tourist industry, and economy in Bonn through “flags, open air concerts, fireworks, and a Berlin fashion show.”39 The newsreel segment showed fashion models from West Berlin parading in front of the Bundeshaus in Bonn with the commentary: “So much charm awakened the longing for the Kurfürstendamm also in Bonn. [. . .] The amiable visit showed that the former capital of the Reich Berlin is by no means forgotten in the provisional federal capital” (1:24).40

Bonn as Effective, yet Provisional Capital: Visiting Bonn (1961) Only in 1960, faced with a culmination of pressures on Bonn in the aftermath of the building freeze, did the Press Office turn to the Deutsche Wochenschau for longer PR film productions on the capital. In the fall of 1960, the newsreel company started production on the 23 min b/w film Visiting Bonn. The planning for the film started from the assumption that at the beginning of the 1960s, “out of the 55 million West Germans, at best one million had actually seen the federal capital with their own eyes.”41 For this reason, the Press Office saw a pronounced need to “introduce” the capital to its own citizens on quite literal terms. With these needs in mind, a film synopsis that the journalist A.W. Uhlig presented to the Press Office in late 1960 must have seemed particularly attractive. Uhlig was well known in the Press Office. In 1955, in cooperation with the ADK, one of the Federal Chancellery’s clandestinely-operated PR outlets, he had produced the anti-communist propaganda film Der große Irrtum (The Great Misapprehension).42

39 Ralf Dahrendorf, Liberal und unabhängig: Gerd Bucerius und seine Zeit (C.H. Beck, 2000), 132. 40 “So viel Charme ließ die Sehnsucht nach dem Kurfürstendamm auch in Bonn laut werden. [. . .] Der liebeswürdige Besuch zeigte, dass die ehemalige Reichshauptstadt in der provisorischen Bundeshauptstadt keineswegs vergessen ist.” “Mit dem Musterkoffer unterwegs,” Neue Deutsche Wochenschau No. 349, 1956. Deutsche Wochenschau Archive. 41 “Es soll davon ausgegangen werden, daß von den etwa 55 Millionen Einwohnern der Bundesrepublik höchstens 1 Million die Bundeshauptstadt mit eigenen Augen gesehen haben.” Film synopsis “Dokumentarfilm ‘Zu Gast in Bonn,’ ” n.d. (DW Archive). 42 In accusatory rhetoric against the Soviet Union, this film defended Adenauer’s politics of Western integration. Uhlig had also pitched an idea for a filmic portrait of Adenauer (see chapter seven) in May of 1960, but the project never came together.

The Discourse of Connectedness 229 Since the number of West Germans familiar with the new capital was so low, Uhlig planned to show sights and sounds of the city, as well as to introduce the actual locations of West German policymaking: “Idyll with Rhine landscape, old gabled houses, angled alleys, an insignificant train station [. . .] We will show the federal district – Foreign Office, Villa Hammerschmidt, Palais Schaumburg, the Bundestag.”43 Uhlig suggested focusing on Bonn both as a diplomatic center (with a map highlighting Bonn’s connections to all the Federal Republic’s diplomatic centers across the globe) and as Rhenish idyll. The film synopsis deftly mixes the city’s two characteristics in its plans to oppose the Bonn idyll with the modern federal district, and in planning for the film to end with scenes featuring evening gala events, set against “nocturnal atmospheric images of the city and the Rhine.”44 Uhlig’s film synopsis defines the film’s main purpose on the following terms: “To portray the work of the federal government in the interplay of the mutual state visits, and to underline that the federal government’s continuity in policy is not least guaranteed through the Federal Chancellor’s close personal ties with the statesmen of the Western world.”45 This suggests that Uhlig conceived the film according to Adenauer’s famous 1957 campaigning motto “no experiments,” and planned to highlight Adenauer’s experience in foreign policy as one of the main reasons for the Federal Republic’s success. Uhlig’s film proposal met with support at the Press Office, not lastly because the agency saw in the project a perfect vehicle for recycling already existing material from the Deutsche Wochenschau’s vast archive on state visits in Bonn. However, in keeping with the air of frugality and efficiency that the federation desired for Bonn, the Press Office’s Head of Film Division Kurt Betz criticized Uhlig’s ending as “imbued with too much pathos,” and instead suggested rewriting it along the lines of “the festive days are over, now Bonn returns to hard and serious work.”46

43 “Daher wird einleitend die Stadt vorgestellt: Idylle mit Rheinlandschaft, alte Giebelhäuser, winklige Gäßchen, ein unbedeutender Bahnhof [. . .] Wir zeigen die Regierungsbauten-Auswärtiges Amt, Villa Hammerschmidt, Palais Schaumburg, den Bundestag.” Film synopsis “Dokumentarfilm ‘Zu Gast in Bonn,’ ” n.d. (DW Archive). 44 “Ausklang: Nächtliches Stimmungsbild von Stadt und Rhein.” Film synopsis “Dokumentarfilm ‘Zu Gast in Bonn,’ ” n.d. (DW Archive). 45 “Zweck: Das Wirken der Bundesregierung im Wechselspiel der gegenseitigen Staatsbesuche zu zeigen und zu unterstreichen, daß die Kontinuität der Politik der Bundesregierung nicht zuletzt durch die engen persönlichen Bindungen des Bundeskanzlers an die Staatsmänner der westlichen Welt gewährleistet ist.” Film synopsis “Dokumentarfilm ‘Zu Gast in Bonn,’ ” n.d. (DW Archive). 46 “Er ist für meine Begriff mit etwas viel Pathos versehen.”; “[. . .] die festlichen Tage sind vorüber, jetzt wird in Bonn wieder hart und ernst gearbeitet.” Letter by Betz (FPO) to Uhlig, December 8, 1960 (BArchiv B145/1459).

230 Staging West German Democracy Regarding Betz’s interest in using material from state visits, Uhlig’s proposal specified that about one-third of the film should consist of newly-shot material, the rest was to be “archival footage.”47 This would keep production cost low (which was projected at only DM 34,000),48 and it would speed up the film’s completion during the winter of 1960/1, with a projected delivery date of March 15, 1961.49 Uhlig’s focus on Adenauer as the guarantor for political continuity and as the film’s central figure must have sat particularly well with the Press Office. In an internal memorandum, Betz even uses a wording from Uhlig’s synopsis verbatim, “that the federal government’s continuity in policy is not least guaranteed through the Federal Chancellor’s close personal ties with the statesmen of the Western world.”50 By December of 1960, Uhlig had been named as the film’s scriptwriter and director.51 A list of suggested new scenes that Uhlig submitted to the Press Office in December of 1960 suggests that Uhlig envisioned an amalgam of the political concept of the capital city and the Federal Chancellor for the film: “Bundestag, Palais Schaumburg by night, façade with illuminated window [of the] federal chancellor’s office—light goes out—federal chancellor leaves Palais Schaumburg and drives off.”52 This proposed scene echoes an image of Adenauer as “always on duty,” working tirelessly for the good of the Federal Republic as its metonymic representative. While not included in the final film, the following analysis will show that the finished film very much works to create an amalgam of “Bonn” and “Adenauer” on the terms that Uhlig envisioned from early on. Production of the film began in January 1961, with the shooting extending into February. The cameraman in charge was Horst Grund, who went about his assignment with great attention to detail and followed very specific instructions in the process.53 For example, Grund was specifically tasked to film at Bonn University to capture footage of

47 48 49 50 51 52

Film synopsis “Dokumentarfilm ‘Zu Gast in Bonn,’ ” n.d. (DW Archive). Letter by the DW to the FPO, December 16, 1960 (BArchiv B145/1459). Contract between FPO and DW, n.d. (BArchiv B145/1459). Internal memo by Kurt Betz (FPO), December 22, 1960 (BArchiv B145/1459). Internal memo by Kurt Betz (FPO), December 22, 1960 (BArchiv B145/1459). “Bundestag, Palais Schaumburg bei Nacht, Fassade mit erleuchtetem Fenster Arbeitszimmer des Bundeskanzlers – Licht verlöscht – Bundeskanzler verläßt Palais Schaumburg und fährt ab.” “Themenliste für Neuaufnahmen zum Film ‘Zu Gast in Bonn,’ ” n.d. (BArchiv B145/1459). 53 In order to capture drive-by footage from the important ministries, Grund spent several days shooting along the Koblenzer Straße (today Adenauerallee) in Bonn. This was not without difficulties: Grund found the pavement to be so bad that he had to deflate the camera car’s tires in order to obtain jitter-free footage. “Aufnahmebericht“ (DW), February 15–17, 1961 (DW Archive).

The Discourse of Connectedness 231 students of color from developing countries.54 These images would be used in the film to underline Bonn’s international stature. Uhlig had also planned to use aerial shots of the federal district in the film, which caused problems. The Press Office contacted the Ministry of Defense about a helicopter for the shooting,55 but much to Uhlig’s frustration, the helicopter never materialized.56 With a film’s raw cut finished by February 20,57 the Deutsche Wochenschau presented the film in Bonn in early March.58 The Press Office subsequently demanded several changes. Among others, it requested the addition of a scene from Adenauer’s eighty-fifth birthday celebration, of which the Deutsche Wochenschau was producing a film at the same time. The Press Office also wanted footage from the visits of Pakistan’s President Ayub Khan and Tanzania’s leader Julius Neyerere to be included.59 Both politicians were significant for the federal government since they stemmed from countries that only recently had obtained independence from colonialist rule. Later in the finished film, the presence of these statesmen would be used to underline the Federal Republic’s affluence and international footprint through its involvement in developmental aid. With work on the commentary extending over March, the film was finished on April 24, 1961.60 The Press Office ordered 400 16mm copies by January of 1962,61 a very high number that indicates that the film was widely circulated through the usual non-commercial outlets of the Landesfilmdienste and clerical film outlets. Interestingly, despite the film’s topic of internationalism and its prevalent discourse of connectedness, the Press Office seems to have distributed the film only domestically, as there is no evidence of foreign language versions. In organizing its narrative, the film capitalizes on the contrast between the cobblestoned streets of the old town and the new federal district, which the Federation had erected south of the old town center alongside the Rhine bank on Koblenzer Strasse (today Konrad Adenauerallee). The film’s opening prepares this contrast between provincialism and world politics by means of panoramic establishing shots of the Rhine landscape

54 “Aufnahmebericht” (DW), February 1, 1961 (DW Archive). 55 Betz (FPO) to Colonel von Kayser (BMVtg), January 30, 1961 (BArchiv B145/1459). 56 Letter by Uhlig to Purzer (DW), March 11, 1961 (DW Archive). 57 Letter by Purzer/Beyer (DW) to Betz (FPO), February 20, 1961 (DW Archive). 58 Letter by Purzer/Beyer (DW) to Betz (FPO), March 14, 1961 (DW Archive). 59 Letter by Uhlig to Purzer (DW), March 11, 1961 (DW Archive). 60 Letter by Wiers and Purzer (DW) to Betz (FPO), April 24, 1961 (DW Archive). 61 Letter by Thiel (Dt. Reportagefilm) to FPO, July 7, 1961; Internal memo (untitled) by Betz (FPO), January 12, 1962 (BArchiv B145/1459).

232 Staging West German Democracy (0:25), set to classical music, thus connoting the Rhine, a quintessential German symbol that contrasts sharply with the Prussian tradition of Berlin, with German high culture. Right from the start, this establishes the iconic German river as a central symbol of the new Bonn Republic. It also connotes the Federal Republic’s political orientation towards the West. According to Simone Derix, “Postwar Germany [. . .] not only enthusiastically presented the former national river, but also shared it in many ways with its guests of state. It no longer was seen as a border, but as a conduit to the West.” In this process, Derix argues, the Rhine was “symbolically charged”.62 The commentary then narrates geographical facts to give the audience an idea where exactly the city is located (within the Siebengebirge, in the so-called Cologne Bay, 0:48). This apparently was necessary, since the overwhelming majority of West Germans had never visited the city. Bonn’s position on the left side of the Rhine, explicitly mentioned, contained the geographic symbolism of being close to the former “hereditary enemy” (Erbfeind) France, now an important partner. The commentary also mentions that Bonn’s history could be traced back to the Roman age (0:55), thus establishing that Bonn’s cultural roots reached considerably further back than those of Berlin, a much younger city that was historically associated with militarist Prussia and the Third Reich. The commentary then explicitly addresses the “Bonn effect” over picturesque images of the old town’s cobblestoned streets, the market square, and gabled houses: “The Bonn idyll, a mixture between Rhenish small town and electoral residency, has hardly changed. And still the town is the focus of political life in the Federal Republic of Germany. It accommodates today nearly all of the top-level federal bodies, yet it has retained a certain reserve” (1:52).63 What exactly that “reserve” entails is never mentioned, yet the word choice clearly points towards the aspect of provisionality, suggesting that due to this disposition, Bonn will not stay capital forever. Together with this commentary, the underlying images of the cobblestoned streets and market square create “an unresolved dichotomy, a divided city,” which in “[. . .] its cityscape and social composition defied all conventional definitions of a European capital.”64 In fact, it is Bonn’s “unresolved contrast between the new

62 Derix, Bebilderte Politik, 180. 63 “Die Bonner Idylle, eine Mischung zwischen rheinischem Städtchen und kurfürstlicher Residenz, hat sich kaum verändert. Und doch ist die Stadt der Mittelpunkt des politischen Lebens in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Sie beherbergt heute fast alle obersten Bundesbehörden, aber eine gewisse Reserviertheit ist ihr geblieben.” Visiting Bonn: A Report of the Political Life in the Federal Capital, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1961, 1:52. 64 Uelzmann, “Bonn, Divided City,” 436.

The Discourse of Connectedness 233

Figure 6.1 Shots of students of color to underline Bonn’s internationalism. Visiting Bonn: A Report of the Political Life in the Federal Capital (Zu Gast in Bonn: Ein Bericht aus dem politischen Leben der Bundeshauptstadt, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1961). German Federal Archive. and the old, between the foreign and the local,”65 along which the central paradigm the film’s narrative is organized. Deftly capitalizing on this contrast, the film uses a sequence filmed from a car to transport the viewer from the old town, through the city gate, to the new town, towards the federal district, whose soberly styled façades clash with the half-timbered houses of the old town. On the way to the federal district, the film’s narrative briefly stops at Bonn University. The film presents the images of students of color during class requested by the Press Office in medium close-up, and while conversing with white students in the hallways between classes (2:44). This establishes the university as the first counterpoint to Bonn’s provincialism. The commentary reinforces this effect by informing the viewer that many students enrolled in the university are “from developing countries,” and that out of the university’s 10,000 students, “more than 1,000 are foreigners, from all parts of the world” (2:50).66 These images posit Bonn as a modern, multiethnic capital. They also initiate the discussion of the Federal Republic as a country that due to

65 Uelzmann, “Bonn, Divided City,” 436. 66 “Heute sind viele Studenten aus den Entwicklungsländern an der Universität Bonn eingeschrieben. Von über 10.000 Studenten sind mehr als 1000 Ausländer aus allen Teilen der Welt.” Visiting Bonn, 2:50.

234 Staging West German Democracy its culture of Bildung, only insufficiently translated as “education,” and economic prowess has become a model for developing nations. The filmic car drive then continues along Koblenzer Straße into the federal district, where several important buildings, such as the Foreign Office, or the Villa Hammerschmidt (the seat of the federal president), are introduced. The tour continues with the Federal Chancellery (located in the Palais Schaumburg) and ends in an aerial long shot of the Bundeshaus. After this image, and with reference to the competing German parliament, the People’s Chamber (Volkskammer) of the German Democratic Republic, the commentary emphasizes the Federal Republic’s doctrine of sole representation: “This is where the freelyelected German parliament meets, which alone is legitimized to speak for the whole of Germany” (4:11).67 This emphatic commentary is underscored by footage of Adenauer entering the building and then transitions into a long shot of the plenary applauding. This sequence visually creates the impression that Adenauer represents this “freelyelected parliament” and its claim to represent the German people alone, although this function is represented in reality by the Bundestag President—the film’s first effort to posit Adenauer as metonymically representing “Germany.” Having thus introduced Adenauer as the most important figure in the building, and, by suggestion, in the West German democratic process, the sequence continues with a scene of Adenauer at the speaker’s podium, presiding over the plenary during his declaration of government of October 5, 1954. Adenauer is shown to enumerate the issues faced by the Federal Republic right after its founding in 1949—issues, as the film implicates, that are now either solved or still unresolved due to Soviet Cold War antagonism. Among the topics mentioned by Adenauer are West German political sovereignty, the question of reunification, and the project of the EEC. The sequence ends with Adenauer arguing “our work in foreign policy is not only done for the Federal Republic, but for a peaceful and secure future of a reunified Germany” (5:07).68 From the perspective of the film’s completion months before the building of the Wall, political rhetoric about German reunification, as in the Adenauer quote of 1954, still abounds. In early 1961, the audience is also well aware that Adenauer had already accomplished two out of the three mentioned goals: the Federal Republic’s political sovereignty, and the country’s integration into the European Economic Community. 67 “Dort tagt das frei gewählte deutsche Parlament, das allein legitimiert ist, für ganz Deutschland zu sprechen.” Visiting Bonn, 4:11. 68 “Unsere außenpolitische Arbeit wird nicht nur für die Bundesrepublik, sondern für eine friedliche und gesicherte Zukunft eines wiedervereinigten Deutschlands geleistet.” Visiting Bonn, 5:07.

The Discourse of Connectedness 235 With the expectations of a 1961 audience in mind, Adenauer’s words of 1954 seem prophetic; the chancellor thus comes across as the creator of the modern West Germany and as tireless fighter for German unity. Adenauer’s words are immediately followed by a long shot of the plenary applauding (5:09), implying unanimous support. In line with the Press Office’s directions, Visiting Bonn strives to create an amalgam of Bonn and Adenauer by rendering the chancellor a commanding presence in the city (even when he is not shown in the frame), and by emphasizing his role in building the Federal Republic’s diplomatic connections around the world. The topic of diplomacy is introduced by means of a scene set in the Federal Chancellery during a diplomatic reception. It portrays Adenauer surrounded by diplomats in their gala uniforms (5:28). The scene then continues with a world map showing Bonn’s diplomatic connections, a shot already suggested in Uhlig’s film synopsis.69 The many connections that emanate from Bonn into the entire world on the map highlight that contrary to its former status as a small and rather inconsequential city, Bonn now is a diplomatic hub, closely linked with the entire world. The commentary also offers an interpretation of the presented numbers: “All in all there are 381 diplomatic and consular centers in the Federal Republic, among them the embassies

Figure 6.2 Discourse of connectedness: Map highlighting Bonn’s diplomatic connections around the world. Visiting Bonn. German Federal Archive.

69 Film synopsis “Dokumentarfilm ‘Zu Gast in Bonn’ ” by Uhlig, n.d. (DW Archive).

236 Staging West German Democracy of 69 countries. If one keeps in mind that 57 states were involved in the war against Germany, these numbers give an idea of the scope of trust that the federal government has gained world-wide” (6:03).70 This scene explains Bonn’s connectedness directly through Adenauer’s leadership, which supposedly gained the trust of Germany’s former Second World War enemies. In its effect, this represents a dramatic repositioning of Germany’s position in world politics when compared to its predecessor, the Third Reich. Bonn’s location in the Rhineland also helped decontaminate German diplomacy from negative associations with the Third Reich and imperial Berlin. A scene depicting the festive reception for Argentinian President Frondizi at Augustusburg Palace in nearby Brühl is particularly illustrative in this context. The footage dwells on the effect of diplomacy as visual spectacle and features Adenauer, Erhard, and Lübke together with many guests in festive attire. Set to Georg Friedrich Händel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks, the camera shows the West German top-level politicians walking through exquisitely adorned staircases, and then pans over the exquisite Rococo frescoes on the ceiling (9:07). The film goes to great lengths to highlight the beauty of the palace (now a UNESCO world heritage site), at which the Federal Republic regularly hosted receptions for foreign visitors, until the federal government moved to Berlin in 1999. This sequence confidently enumerates the traditional elements of diplomatic representation through the longestablished insignia of statehood: palaces, foreign dignitaries, diplomats, festive uniforms, banquets, rooms adorned with baroque opulence, diplomatic protocol. The visual splendor of the images again counters the quaintness of Bonn’s old town, and, in fact, brings a hint of the glamor of the old imperial Berlin to Bonn. However, by reference to the backdrop of the more modest, Francophile architecture of the Augustusburg Palace and a German-born composer who spent most of his life in Great Britain, these resonances are now subtly altered and re-inscribed into a vastly different society, one that is decidedly non-Prussian in stature. The spectacle of foreign policy is thus decoupled from its imperialist and fascist associations and transported from the former Reich capital Berlin to Bonn. In this effect, this sequence is a perfect example of how the Bonn Republic carefully renegotiated its roots on film. While most of the diplomatic guests featured in the film are from developing countries, significant room is given in the narrative for a 70 “Insgesamt gibt es 381 diplomatische und konsularische Vertretungen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, darunter Botschaften von 69 Ländern. Gemessen an der Tatsache dass 57 Staaten am Kriege gegen Deutschland beteiligt waren, vermitteln diese Zahlen einen Begriff davon, welches Maß an Vertrauen in der Welt die Bundesregierung erworben hat.” Visiting Bonn, 6:03.

The Discourse of Connectedness 237 sequence on US President Eisenhower’s 1959 visit to Bonn, which, as the commentary emphasizes, took place “with an unprecedented level of emotion from the population” (10:34).71 There was ample material on Eisenhower’s visit, due to the Deutsche Wochenschau production of 1959 for the Press Office, Visit of Trust. As argued in chapter three, the films on the US state visits are organized around a filmic stability discourse, which portrayed the close relationship between the Federal Republic and the US as an indicator of Adenauer’s success at positioning West Germany as a stable, Western democracy. In order to capitalize on the stability discourse, Visiting Bonn features several scenes from Visit of Trust, among them a scene on the drive to Bonn in an open car with Adenauer, while thousands of West Germans lined the streets to cheer for the two politicians. According to the commentary, Eisenhower “spoke of the admiration that the American people felt for Adenauer” (10:56).72 Visiting Bonn subsequently capitalizes on the appeal of state visits by what the film refers to as the “young nations” (“junge Völker”), including India’s President Jawaharlal Nehru (1956) and the King of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej (1960). The trope of foreign diplomacy satisfies the general West German audience’s craving for a visual spectacle featuring exotic and famous guests in Bonn and results in scenes that in visually interesting ways seem at odds with the city’s provincial backdrop. The sequence on Nehru’s visit builds on the visual contrast between Nehru and his family, clad in traditional Indian garments, and the backdrop of the scenic Rhine landscape. The opening features a medium long shot of Nehru and his family, with his wife wearing a traditional sari, set against old buildings in Bonn’s old town, walking towards the boat landing, and boarding a tourist boat on which Nehru’s family takes a tour with their German hosts (13:38), among them Adenauer and Bundestag President Eugen Gerstenmaier. Shots alternating between panoramic views of the Siebengebirge (13:51) and Nehru’s female entourage in their saris (14:02), complete with a close-up of one of the Indian women taking touristic pictures (14:04), dwell in voyeuristic fashion on the contrast between the quintessentially German landscape and the exotic garments of the decidedly “foreign”-marked visitors. Apart from the scene’s exotic allure, its striking contrast further contributes to the irresolvable contradiction of the “Bonn effect.”

71 “Unter einer vorher nicht gekannten großen Anteilnahme der Bevölkerung landete die Düsenmaschine des hohen amerikanischen Gastes auf dem Flughafen Köln-Wahn.” Visiting Bonn, 10:40. See chapter three for more details on this scene. 72 “Unmittelbar nach seiner Ankunft sprach Eisenhower von der Bewunderung, die das amerikanische Volk für den Bundeskanzler empfinde.” Visiting Bonn, 10:56.

238 Staging West German Democracy

Figure 6.3 The visual spectacle of foreign visitors against the backdrop of the Rhineland. Visiting Bonn. German Federal Archive. A second aspect of the film’s narrative of exoticism is to highlight the Federal Republic’s foreign policy of developmental aid. In the early 1960s, this was an especially important instrument of foreign policy, as the Western nations and the Soviet Union and its allies competed for political influence in the recently decolonized parts of Africa and Asia. By announcing over panoramic establishing shots of industrial facilities in the Ruhr region (West Germany’s industrial heartland) that “Bonn lies at the gates of the largest German industrial region” (17:15),73 Visiting Bonn intrinsically links West Germany’s success stories in politics and the economy. By emphasizing that state visitors who came to Bonn to admire the Federal Republic’s rapid political progresses just have to travel a very short distance to the Ruhr region and admire the concomitant economic progress, the two success stories are as much linked geographically as they are connected politically. This sequence posits the Federal Republic as a model for developing nations. The commentary claims that many developing nations from Africa and Asia, “who seek political friendship with the Federal Republic, believe in the possibilities of aid through the West German economy” (17:25).74 The commentary goes on to underline “For several years, the federal government has placed great interest in the question

73 “Bonn liegt vor den Toren des größten deutschen Industriegebietes.” Visiting Bonn, 17:15. 74 “Die jungen Völker in Asien und Afrika, die politische Freundschaft mit der Bundesrepublik Deutschland suchen, glauben an die Möglichkeiten einer Hilfe durch die westdeutsche Wirtschaft.” Visiting Bonn, 17:25.

The Discourse of Connectedness 239 of economic aid to developing nations” (18:53).75 In 1961, this implies that for several years already, the West German economy had been in a state that warranted the export of economic approaches and methods. This represents a proud reference of the economic miracle. Just as it did with Bonn proper and the political process located there, Visiting Bonn equally internationalizes the West German economy through images of guests from “exotic” countries. Hence, the Tunku of Malay (18:20) is depicted touring the Duisburg harbor, guests from Africa are shown touring steel forges (17:54), and the Pakistani Minister President Ayub Khan is portrayed meeting fellow citizens working as interns in West German factories (17:42). Crucially, the images reveal that German workers show the Pakistanis how to operate the machinery (17:37). By emphasizing that after these visits, negotiations continue in Bonn (18:47),76 the film’s narrative argues that through Bonn, the label “Made in West Germany,” which by then had acquired global significance and respect, is exported around the world. The sequence on the economic aspects of policymaking in Bonn is summed up in a scene set in the great conference hall of the Foreign Office, with its giant mural of the world map in the background. Commenting over a long shot of the signing of a trade agreement with the Soviet Union, the commentary argues: “Thanks to a clear and consequent policy on the side of the West, the Federal Republic of Germany has become an important political and economic factor in the free part of the world. This is also recognized by the Soviet Union” (20:39).77 In confident terms, Visiting Bonn underlines the superiority of the capitalist economic system, which after a mere ten years of reconstruction enabled the formerly war-torn economy of a comparatively small nation like the Federal Republic to provide economic help for the giant but chronically underdeveloped Soviet Union, floundering in the economic stagnation produced by Communism. For the especially festive ending with night-time shots of Bonn and the Rhine called for in director A.W. Uhlig’s synopsis, the film presents images of the King of Thailand’s visit. The sequence opens with a long shot of an illuminated Rhine bridge with car headlights filmed from above (20:55), a decidedly metropolitan visual trope. The next shot then zooms in and reveals the car headlights to belong to the diplomatic 75 “Seit Jahren schenkt die Bundesregierung der Frage der Wirtschaftshilfe an Entwicklungsländer ihre Aufmerksamkeit.” Visiting Bonn, 18:53. 76 “Nach der Rückkehr nach Bonn werden die Gespräche mit Politikern und Wirtschaftlern der Bundesrepublik in gelockertem Rahmen fortgesetzt.” Visiting Bonn, 18:57. 77 “Dank einer klaren und konsequenten Politik an der Seite des Westens ist die Bundesrepublik Deutschland ein bedeutender politischer und wirtschaftlicher Faktor im freien Teil der Welt geworden. Auch die Sowjetunion trägt dieser Tatsache Rechnung.” Visiting Bonn, 20:39.

240 Staging West German Democracy entourage of the royal couple, crossing the Rhine on their way to a reception at the Hotel Petersberg (21:00). The Hotel complex, which hosted the seat of the Allied High Commission in Bonn until 1952, when the General Treaty formally ended the status of occupation, is a highly symbolic location for the German audience. The film’s depiction of the diplomatic reception rewrites this location, from which Allied occupational policies were once dictated to the federal government, as a symbol of regained sovereignty, a festive space confidently reclaimed by the Federal Republic’s political elite. For the film’s conclusion, the narrative strives to underline the amalgam of Adenauer and Bonn and the metonymic quality of this combination for the Federal Republic. A medium shot of Adenauer, conversing casually with the Thai King and other guests, cuts to a medium shot of the chancellor, Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano, and Minister of the Interior Gerhard Schröder standing in festive attire in front of a window revealing the dramatic Rhine panorama (23:21). During this progression, the commentary underlines the film’s main PR message, which highlights Adenauer as the elder statesman who quasi singlehandedly brought the Federal Republic to its present position of success: The great prestige, which Dr. Adenauer as head of government and representative of the new Germany commands around the world, as well the manifold ties which for years have connected him to leading personalities abroad, contributed in critical fashion to the strengthening of trust that is placed into the German people by the free world. Through these personal encounters of the Federal Chancellor and his collaborators with reigning heads of state, statesmen and politicians from all parts of the world, ties of friendship were strengthened over the years, and new ones were forged. ‘Visiting Bonn:’ in spite of all the protocol’s glamour, this means political work toward the goal of friendship and partnership between the nations – struggle for the preservation of a peaceful and free world (23:00).78 78 “Das große Ansehen, das Bundeskanzler Dr. Adenauer als Regierungschef und Repräsentant des neuen Deutschland in aller Welt genießt und die vielfältigen Beziehungen, die ihn seit Jahren mit führenden Persönlichkeiten des Auslandes verbinden, haben zur Festigung des Vertrauens der freien Welt zum deutschen Volk im hohen Maße beigetragen. Durch diese persönlichen Begegnungen des Bundeskanzlers und seiner Mitarbeiter mit regierenden Häuptern, Staatsmännern und Politikern aus allen Teilen der Welt wurden im Laufe der Jahre starke Bande der Freundschaft vertieft und neue geschlossen. ‘Zu Gast in Bonn,’ das bedeutet bei allem protokollarischen Glanz politische Arbeit im Dienste der Freundschaft und Partnerschaft zwischen den Völkern. Bemühung um die Erhaltung einer friedlichen und freien Welt.” Visiting Bonn, 23:00.

The Discourse of Connectedness 241 After the commentary ends, a camera pan to the left comes to rest on the Rhine landscape for several seconds. The film ends in a final panoramic shot of Bonn’s old town during dusk, with the Rhine and a bridge in the foreground (23:32). The film’s final, panoramic shots posit Bonn and the Rhine region as the indispensable settings for the endeavors described above. Bonn is thus rendered not only the capital of the Federal Republic, but also a location inseparably intertwined with the country’s rise to its new postwar socioeconomic prosperity and military security. In its modest stance that integrates the old (diplomatic decorum, the classical Rhenish landscape suggesting associations from the Nibelungs to the federalist values of 1848) with the new (a stance of modesty, integration as guarantee for economic growth and military stability), Bonn becomes the spatial manifestation of Adenauer’s politics: the film creates an amalgam out of the two. And yet the city maintains, as the film’s introductory commentary claimed, a “certain reserve” in view of its duties as federal capital. Bonn on visual terms emerges as a reluctant capital in Visiting Bonn, ready to relinquish its duties as soon as the German–German situation should change. The constant contrast between the diplomatic splendor and the exoticism surrounding its visitors on the one hand, and the city’s quintessential Rhenish quaintness on the other remains unresolved—quite on purpose.

Highlighting the Federal Republic’s International Stature: Koblenzer Strasse 99–103 (1961/3) The “Bonn effect,” the unresolved contradiction between Bonn’s Rhenish small-town quaintness and its status as capital of an up-andcoming Western economic power and motor of the European unification process, continued to inform a second Bonn-based film that the Deutsche Wochenschau produced for the Federal Press Office between 1960 and 1961. Like Visiting Bonn, the film was finished and released around the time of the building of the Berlin Wall. In this case, the film was released shortly afterwards, in September 1961. While it did not directly mention the much-contested edifice, parts of the film still engaged in a “battle of the systems” narrative, as will be shown below. Koblenzer Strasse 99–103 further refines Bonn’s envisaged image as a reluctant and modest, yet extremely well-connected capital that in spite of its small size and relative insignificance in German public life maintains active ties to the entire world. With the title alluding to the street address of Federal Republic’s Foreign Office, the film was to enlighten viewers about the work of the ministry. Through the narrative premise of depicting an average workday at the Foreign Office, the film portrayed Bonn as the diplomatic hub directing the Federal Republic’s activities in foreign policy. In contrast to Visiting Bonn, which describes

242 Staging West German Democracy “the world coming to Bonn,” Koblenzer Strasse in a way reverses the former’s narrative by describing “Bonn coming to the world” through a highlighting of the city’s global footprint in the form of diplomatic service abroad, and through humanitarian and development initiatives. In this regard, Koblenzer Strasse supplements Visiting Bonn’s PR message about Bonn in important ways. Koblenzer Strasse was created in close collaboration with the Foreign Office, with Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano (CDU) directly intervening in the production process.79 This significantly complicated the film’s production and drove it over the anticipated completion date. In 1963, when Gerhard Schröder (CDU) replaced von Brentano as Foreign Minister, the film was updated to reflect these personnel changes along with changes among world heads of state.80 The Foreign Office’s extensive involvement in the film and its updating suggest that Koblenzer Strasse was seen as an effective tool to project a desired image of Bonn and the Adenauer government’s foreign policy. The script for Koblenzer Strasse was conceived by the Hamburg-based journalist Heinrich von Tiedemann. Von Tiedemann worked on several projects for the Deutsche Wochenschau as a freelancer during the early 1960s; among other things, he also wrote the commentary for the US state visit film Welcome Dr. Adenauer (1961). Von Tiedemann’s unsolicited film synopsis reached the Press Office in March of 1960,81 at a point when the Deutsche Wochenschau was already involved in preparations for a film on the Foreign Office.82 Von Tiedemann conceived the film as follows: A day at the Foreign Office in Bonn. The camera pans through the building from morning to evening and captures the most important aspects of the domestic and Foreign Service in changeful juxtaposition. The different departments are explained in their importance and operation through inserts of the different outposts. The figure of the minister is present through the entire narrative, but without being too much of a commanding presence.

79 Letter by von Hase (Foreign Office) to Betz (FPO), May 24, 1961 (BArchiv B1452816). 80 Script for audio commentary “K 107 ‘Koblenzer Strasse 99–103’ (Neufassung),” n.d. (DW Archive). 81 Letter by DW to Betz (FPO), March 22, 1960 (BArchiv B145/2816). 82 As of December 1959, the Press Office had planned a film that was to center on “the work of the Foreign Office and the German diplomatic missions abroad” that had a projected budget of DM 80.000. For that purpose, Deutsche Wochenschau cameramen had already shot footage of the diplomatic missions around the world, such as “London, Cairo, Khartoum, and Milano.” Internal memo by Betz (FPO), December 16, 1959 (BArchiv B145/2816).

The Discourse of Connectedness 243 The perspective on the different outposts is meant to bring to the fore a maximum of different aspects, while exotic landscapes and impressions play a central role in the film’s “poetic” coloring.83 The Deutsche Wochenschau immediately deemed von Tiedemann’s synopsis useful for their project already under way, but the company’s leadership criticized a suggested scene summarizing the Foreign Office’s past activities during the Third Reich: “In our opinion, it is not necessary to mention the Foreign Office’s Third Reich past (Hitler’s signature and the assignments of Foreign Office employees).”84 This was a touchy topic since the ministry’s founding in 1951. That same year, journalist Eckart Heinze-Mansfeld revealed that the Federal Republic’s Foreign Office had re-employed numerous former, NSDAP card-carrying employees of the Nazi Foreign Office, some of whom had even been instrumental in organizing deportations. Heinze-Mansfeld’s report had brought about a parliamentary commission and ignited public critique.85 Consequently, the Foreign Office’s Third Reich past was left out of the film. By summer of 1960, the film had entered the production stage, and von Tiedemann had been named the film’s director. In a letter to the Press Office of June 30, 1960, the Deutsche Wochenschau remarked enthusiastically that the film had the potential “[. . .] to present to the public an unprecedented impression of the work of the Foreign Office.”86 In representing this work, the film was also intended to comment favorably on the Federal Republic in the competition of political systems between West and East Germany. During von Tiedemann’s consultations about the project with the Foreign Office, the ministry advised him to

83 “Ein Tag im Auswärtigen Amt zu Bonn. Vom Morgen bis zum Abend durchwandert die Kamera das Haus, erfaßt in wechselvollem Nebeneinander die wichtigsten Komplexe im Inneren und Äußeren Dienst. Die einzelnen Ressorts werden durch Einblendung der verschiedenen Aussenstationen in ihrer Bedeutung und Arbeitsweise erläutert. Die Figur des Ministers zieht sich durch den ganzen Ablauf, freilich ohne allzu beherrschend zu sein. Der Blick auf die Aussenstationen soll möglichst abwechslungsreiche Aspekte zutage fördern, wobei exotische Landschaften und Impressionen eine wesentliche Rolle zur “poetischen Färbung des Films spielen.” Film synopsis “Exposé über AA-Film,” n.d. (BArchiv B145/2816). 84 “Auf die Vergangenheit des Auswärtigen Amtes im Dritten Reich einzugehen (siehe Unterschrift Hitlers und die Beschäftigung der A.A.-Angestellten im Dritten Reich) erübrigt sich unseres Erachtens.” Letter by Schwamkrug and Purzer (DW) to Betz (FPO), March 22, 1960 (BArchiv B145/2816). 85 Albrecht-Heider, “Deutsche Diplomaten: Die schwankenden Gestalten aus der Nazizeit.” 86 “Er birgt alle Möglichkeiten in sich, der Öffentlichkeit einen bisher noch nicht gehabten Eindruck von der Arbeit des Auswärtigen Amtes zu geben.” Letter by Purzer and Schwamkrug (DW) to Betz (FPO), July 30, 1960 (DW Archive).

244 Staging West German Democracy film at a West German embassy in Guinea’s capital of Conakry in West Africa.87 Guinea had only recently gained independence from France in 1958 and had gone Socialist, while still allowing trade with the West. Since the German Democratic Republic had also established a diplomatic mission in Conakry, the location of Guinea was perfectly suited to portray the Cold War battleground of the systems. The Deutsche Wochenschau specifically commented on this aspect to Kurt Betz at the Press Office: We believe that one could forego shooting at European embassies without specific character, e.g. in Rome or Athens, in favor of filming in a country in which the juxtaposition of the diplomatic missions of the Federal Republic and the Soviet Zone [the GDR, JU] can be illustrated. Mr. von Tiedemann told us that the gentlemen of the Foreign Office would like to see exactly this political juxtaposition take center stage.88 In this context, a catalog of proposed scenes for the film from September 1960 mentions among other things for Guinea the “trading mission of the Soviet Zone (distributes atrocity propaganda against the Federal Republic),” which it juxtaposes with the “enlightenment work of the German Embassy.”89 After financing issues that had caused further delays were ultimately sorted out, the film’s production picked up speed when von Tiedemann traveled to different European capitals for filming in October, to the USA in November, and to West Africa in November and December of 1960. Upon his return, he personally presented the film’s raw cut in Bonn on February 2, 1961.90 While working on the film’s commentary, von Tiedemann again was advised to carefully edit out the Foreign Office’s Third Reich past. An internal memo on the film’s developing commentary notes that the Munich Agreement of 1938, which “legalized” Hitler’s annexing of the 87 Letter by Purzer and Schwamkrug (DW) to Betz, July 11, 1960 (DW Archive). 88 “Wir können uns vorstellen, dass man Aufnahmen in europäischen Botschaften ohne spezifischen Charakter, wie z.B. in Rom oder Athen, zugunsten einer Aufnahme in einem Land fallen lässt, in dem das Nebeneinander der diplomatischen Vertretungen der Bundesrepublik und der Sowjetzone dargestellt werden kann. Herr von Tiedemann hat uns mitgeteilt, dass die Herren des Auswärtigen Amts gerade diesen politischen Gegensatz gern herausgearbeitet sehen m öchten.” Letter by Schwankrug and Beyer (DW) to Betz (FPO), September 29, 1960 (BArchiv B145/2826). 89 List “Aufnahmeobjekte in Westafrika.” September 26, 1960 (BArchiv B145/2816). 90 Letter by Wiers and Schwamkrug (DW) to Betz (FPO), February 6, 1961 (DW Archive).

The Discourse of Connectedness 245 Sudetenland, was to be omitted, and “the commentary about the map (Poland),” which the Wehrmacht invaded soon after in September of 1939, “should be kept very general.”91 As a consequence, the finished film’s commentary avoids any direct reference to the Foreign Office’s problematic Third Reich past and merely shows documents bearing Hitler’s signature along with the ones of Bismarck and Wilhelm I, with the euphemistic remark “Completed chapters of German foreign policy” (22:38).92 With the commentary completed, the Press Office deemed the film “finished” in May of 1961.93 An internal memo from the agency expresses satisfaction with the finished product by mentioning that “the film is ideally suited for use in the domestic realm to inform about the federal government’s foreign policy efforts.”94 While the Press Office was very satisfied, the film still needed to be presented to Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano in a private screening. For that purpose, the Press Office sent a 35mm projection system together with a projectionist to von Brentano’s official residence.95 At that opportunity, von Brentano was also to be presented with the recently finished Visiting Bonn.96 Apparently contrary to everyone’s expectations, von Brentano’s office requested numerous changes after the viewing. While the minister found the film “on the whole well done,” he requested the addition of a short scene of himself in his official residence on the Venusberg in Bonn, of one that portrayed the inauguration of new Legation Secretaries of the Foreign Office, and of a sequence from the Bundestag. Von Brentano also wanted the film to be shortened in several instances, for example he suggested eliminating a scene of the German embassy in Cairo altogether.97

91 “Es soll Walther Rothenau [sic!] ohne Erwähnung des Rapollo [sic!] – Vertrages genannt werden, das Münchner Abkommen von 1938 wegfallen und der Kommentar zur Landkarte (Polen) nur allgemein gehalten sein.” Internal memo (DW), February 6, 1961 (BArchiv B145/2816). 92 “Abgeschlossene Kapitel deutscher Außenpolitik.” Koblenzer Strasse 99–103: A Workday at the Foreign Office, Deutsche Wochenschau 1961/3, 22:38. 93 Internal memo by Betz (FPO), May 25, 1961 (BArchiv B145/2816). 94 “Es hat sich gezeigt, daß dieser Film sehr gut geeignet ist, im Inland zur Information über die Tätigkeit der Bundesregierung auf außenpolitischem Gebiet eingesetzt zu werden.” Internal memo by Brunnbauer (FPO), June 6, 1961 (BArchiv B145/2816). 95 Letter by Betz (FPO) to von Hase (Foreign Office), May 15, 1961 (BArchiv B145/2816). 96 Letter by von Hase (Foreign Office) to Betz (FPO), May 4, 1961 (BArchiv B145/2816). 97 “Der Film über das Auswärtige Amt, um den es uns in erster Linie ging, hat erfreulicherweise allgemeinen Beifall gefunden. Auch der Herr Minister fand ihn im ganzen gelungen. In seinem Auftrag möchte ich Sie jedoch um einige kleine Ergänzungen bitten.” Letter by von Hase (Foreign Office) to Betz (FPO), May 24, 1961 (BArchiv B145/2816).

246 Staging West German Democracy The processing of this request at the Press Office apparently overlapped with the agency’s ordering of the film’s first 100 copies in June.98 Betz forwarded von Brentano’s reaction to the film to the Deutsche Wochenschau,99 but in the meantime had already given the order for the production of the 100 copies of the film in its current stage to the Deutsche Reportagefilm.100 In its answer letter of June 23, the Deutsche Wochenschau company basically rejected von Brentano’s suggestions. The considerable delay between von Brentano’s demanded changes and the newsreel company’s reaction, together with Betz’s order for the film copies in the film’s present form, suggest that Betz had delayed von Brentano’s feedback for some unknown reason, and the fate of the initially ordered 100 copies remains unknown.101 Regarding the Deutsche Wochenschau’s reaction to the proposed new scenes, Editor in Chief Manfred Purzer and Director Heinz Wiers jointly argued that further shooting would cause “disproportionally high cost,” and that altering the film could not proceed “without negatively affecting the quality of the film’s visual rhythm.” They also referred to the film’s planned screening at Aktualitätenkinos in the near future, which, as they argued, would make it impossible to consider the “extremely complicated desired changes.” On the other hand, Purzer and Wiers agreed to perform the suggested shortenings, “insofar as they do not alter the sense of the commentary.”102

98 Letter by Betz (BPA) to Deutsche Reportagefilm, June 14, 1961 (BArchiv B145/2816). 99 Letter by Betz (FPO) to von Hase (Foreign Office), June 26, 1961 (BArchiv B145/2816). 100 Letter by Betz (FPO) to Dt. Reportagefilm, June 14, 1961 (BArchiv B145/2816). 101 There is no information in the Bundesarchiv files as to what happened to these copies. Equally, the considerable lag of one month cannot be explained based on the files. 102 “Wir haben uns eingehend mit den Änderungswünschen des Auswärtigen Amtes zu dem Film ‘Koblenzer Strasse 99–103’ beschäftigt und müssen Ihnen zu unserem Bedauern mitteilen, dass Ergänzungsaufnahmen, ohne einen unverhältnismässig hohen Kostenaufwand zu verursachen, nicht möglich sind. Der Einbau neuer Aufnahmen (Einblendungen aus dem Bundestag, Überreichung der Ernennungsurkunden, eine Aufnahme des Ministers auf dem Venusberg) ist, ohne den Film in der Bild-Rhythmik qualitativ zu verschlechtern, nicht ratsam. [. . .] Ein wesentliches Argument gegen diese Änderungen scheint uns der Zeitfaktor zu sein. Sie wissen, dass der Film in Kürze in den AKI-Theatern eingesetzt werden soll, was für uns bedeutet, dass die überaus komplizierten Änderungswünsche nicht mehr berücksichtigt werden können. Die von Ihnen verlangten Kürzungen allerdings werden von uns, soweit sie den Sinn des Kommentars nicht entstellen, sofort durchgeführt.” Letter by Wiers and Purzer (DW) to Betz (FPO), June 23, 1961 (BArchiv B145/2816).

The Discourse of Connectedness 247 Faced with such determined opposition, Betz and the Press Office suddenly needed to mediate between the Foreign Office and the Deutsche Wochenschau, which in this case had displayed a singular instance of determined opposition to its government client and sponsor. In a letter to the Foreign Office of June 14 that reported on the film’s reediting process, Betz in conciliatory language wrote that von Brentano’s desired changes “were to a large extent respected. [. . .] With regard to the estimate, I was obviously obliged to see to it that no significant further cost would arise. However, I am confident to say that the present version will also find your approval.”103 The requested changes drove up the film’s cost further, so that it ran over the film’s original budget of DM 110,000, and finally cost DM 118,015. According to a Press Office memorandum of October 2, the extra cost was to a large extent caused by the Foreign Office’s “belated, detailed, wishes for changes [. . .] which,” as the document argues, “had to be respected.”104 This incident illustrates that in this case, the wishes of the Foreign Office as the main beneficiary of the PR film superseded the Press Office’s authority in the project. After the summer of 1961 had been spent implementing the Foreign Office’s desired changes, the fall finally saw the film’s distribution and the production of foreign language versions. By the end of September 1961, the Deutsche Reportagefilm had distributed 100 16mm copies of the film to its usual distribution outlets, such as the Catholic and Protestant film outlets and the Landesfilmdienste, with one copy slated for the embassy in Cairo, and one copy sent directly to Minister von Brentano himself. Interestingly, a total of 25 copies went to the CDU’s PR outlet the ADK.105 This serves as further indication of how much the Press Office valued the film’s importance in describing and promoting the Federal Republic’s international stature and political efforts.

103 Betz argues in the original German that the demanded changes were “[. . .] weitgehend Rechnung getragen [. . .]. Ich war natürlich gehalten, mich im Rahmen des Voranschlages danach zu richten, ob keine wesentlichen Mehrkosten entstehen würden. Ich glaube jedoch sagen zu können, daß die vorliegende Fassung auch Ihre Billigung finden wird.” Betz (FPO) to von Hase (Foreign Office), July 13, 1961 (BArchiv B145/2816). 104 “Die Mehrkosten ergeben sich insbesondere dadurch, daß das Auswärtige Amt noch nachträglich detaillierte Änderungswünsche geäußert hat, die respektiert werden mußten, sowie durch die Notwendigkeit, den Film länger als ursprünglich vorgesehen zu drehen, um die vielseitige Arbeit des Auswärtigen Amtes zu zeigen und zu würdigen. Die dadurch tatsächlich entstandenen Mehrkosten betragen insgesamt DM 8.409,58.” Internal memo by Keller (FPO) for Betz (FPO), October 2, 1961 (BArchiv B145/2816). 105 Letter by Dt. Reportagefilm to FPO, September 21, 1961 (BArchiv B145/2816).

248 Staging West German Democracy The film was initially slated for translation into six languages (English, American English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Portuguese) for a total of DM 65,000.106 The extraordinary amount of different language versions, together with the considerable cost attached, further underline Koblenzer Strasse’s perceived PR value. Ultimately, however, and perhaps due to the already overdrawn budget, the Press Office decided to significantly reduce the number of foreign language versions and settled on versions in British English, American English, and French.107 The film’s finished 1961 version took more than a year longer to produce than anticipated and exceeded the initially projected budget of DM 80,000 by nearly DM 40,000. The Foreign Office’s frequent and detailed interventions into the production aptly illustrate how much the ministry saw at stake in the project. The extensive reworking that the film underwent in 1963 further emphasizes this impression. In January of 1963, the Press Office and the Deutsche Wochenschau discussed an updated version of the film, in which the new Foreign Minister Gerhard Schröder (CDU), who took office in November of 1961, was to figure instead of von Brentano. Of particular interest in this endeavor was the film’s opening, which contained a “montage, in which encounters, conferences, conversations, and state visits are shown.” The Deutsche Wochenschau commented about the opening to the Press Office that “in this montage, the shots of the former Foreign Minister would need to be replaced by shots of the present Foreign Minister.” The second major change was that the newsreel company needed to reshoot a scene showing the “man of the house in front of the AA [Foreign Office, JU] and his walk to his office.”108 The film was also adapted to the most recent developments in domestic and foreign policy. Instead of referencing the escalating German division in the aftermath of the Berlin Wall, a topic already represented in the original version through the story on the East and West German diplomatic missions in Guinea, the alterations instead mentioned the recent Franco-German policy of reconciliation initiated by Adenauer and French State President Charles de Gaulle.109

106 Letter by Thiel (Dt. Reportagefilm) to FPO, September 9, 1961 (BArchiv B145/2816). The memo lists “English” and “American” separately. 107 Internal memo by Betz (FPO), September 27, 1961 (BArchiv B145/2816). 108 “1. Der Vorspann vor dem Titel enthält eine Montage, in der Begegnungen, Konferenzen, Gespräche und Staatsbesuche gezeigt werden. [. . .] In dieser Montage müßten Aufnahmen des ehemaligen Außenministers durch Aufnahmen des jetzigen Außenministers ersetzt werden. [. . .] 2. Die Ankunft des Hausherrn vor dem AA und sein Gang zum Büro muß neu gedreht werden.” Letter by Wiers and Purzer (DW) to Betz (FPO), January 29, 1963 (BArchiv B145/2816). 109 Letter by Deutsche Reportagefilm to FPO, November 4, 1963 (BArchiv B145/2816).

The Discourse of Connectedness 249 The new version of Koblenzer Strasse, which carried a projected cost of DM 10,020,110 was finished by August of 1963, when the first copies were billed to the Press Office.111 Again, the agency discussed an extensive translation work of the updated film into six foreign languages.112 As was the case with the first version of the film, however, it was ultimately decided to translate the film only into English and French. Interestingly, the Press Office reasoned that the film would be shown in “underdeveloped countries,” the English and French language versions were to be augmented each by a second, simplified version with “simple text.” The four different language versions of the film cost a total of DM 37,000, a considerable sum that speaks to the continued value of the film for the Foreign Office.113 All of the above data suggests that the film was conceived for screenings in a wide number of situations in order to transmit to the world a desired image of the Federal Republic, and of its provisional capital Bonn’s intricate and far-reaching diplomatic connections. The fact that twenty-five copies of the initial version went to the PR outlet ADK further suggests that the film was used extensively during events that sought to rally the audience’s opinion in favor of the Adenauer and Erhard administrations, for election rallies, and for so-called “political schooling,” which also took place in the CDU’s local and state-wide chapters. While reliable data on the film’s screening numbers is missing, the fact that the correspondence between the Deutsche Wochenschau and the Press Office explicitly mentioned dates for screenings in Aktualitätenkinos suggests that the film also saw a commercial release, if only on a limited basis, as the PR films normally ran only for a few days in these theaters. The frame narrative of the 45 min b/w film, which explains the workings of the Foreign Office by means of a virtual tour of the building in Bonn, highlights the capital’s worldwide impact through several diplomatic “stories” set all over the world that connect in various ways to the Bonn headquarters and to the West German capital. More ambitious in terms of its aesthetic approach than Visiting Bonn, Koblenzer Strasse’s narrative principle of covering an entire day from morning to night, its prominent use of editing techniques such as crosscutting and

110 “Genehmigungsverfügung” by Betz (FPO), February 15, 1963 (BArchiv B145/ 2816). 111 Dt. Reportagefilm to FPO, August 29, 1963 (BArchiv B145/2816). 112 Deutsche Reportagefilm to FPO, November 4, 1963 (BArchiv B145/2816). 113 “Weiterhin sind von dem gleichen Film für unterentwickelte Länder je eine weitere französische und englische Sprachfassung mit einfachem Text herzustellen.” Contract (FPO) with Dt. Reportagefilm, n.d. (BArchiv B145/2816).

250 Staging West German Democracy montage, and the juxtaposition of different “stories,” all reference Walther Ruttmann’s city film masterpiece Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (Berlin – die Sinfonie der Großstadt, 1927), which in many regards seems to have served as a technical and aesthetic template for the film. At the same time, the analysis makes clear that Koblenzer Strasse presents a city that is decidedly not a metropolis worthy of a “normal capital,” to the effect that some of the film’s images in their provincial quaintness even seem like an ironic commentary on Ruttmann’s film. This narrative irony contributes to the “Bonn effect,” the unresolved contradiction between Bonn’s international stature and its provincial atmosphere. The film’s premise as laid out in the opening commentary is to show an “average” day at the Foreign Office from morning to night, in order to provide insight into what the commentary refers to as the “unassuming sphere” of everyday diplomatic work, “removed from the limelight” (0:55).114 This commentary already emphasizes an image of the political work in Bonn as factual, serious, and, apart from the glamor of diplomatic events, not interested in headlines, but rather in getting the job done efficiently. The commentary is delivered over a montage of headlines-like images that capture high-level diplomatic events and state visits, featuring Konrad Adenauer, Gerhard Schröder (since 1961 the foreign minister), Ludwig Erhard, US President John F. Kennedy, French State President Charles de Gaulle, and others. The montage of world politics is introduced by “meta-shots” of photographers, journalists, and cameramen recording the events (0:06). While the accompanying commentary in part deconstructs the montage’s quality as spectacle, the opening equally renders the Federal Republic as a diplomatic powerhouse whose political reach emanates from Bonn and spans the globe. The tension inherent between these two stances is desired, as it furthers the impression of Bonn as reluctant, and therefore provisional capital. The spectacular opening montage with its fast-paced references to world politics clashes sharply with the next scene offering images of the idyllic Rhine in the federal district and Bonn’s old town at morning, characterized by the commentary as “undramatic” and “every day” (1:25–2:15).115 The film’s title is displayed over a long shot of a city worker sweeping a street in Bonn’s deserted

114 “Das später ‘historisch’ genannte politische Ereignis entsteht nur selten in einer Sternstunde. Es ist vielmehr das Ergebnis sorgfältiger Planungen, ständig fortdauernder Bemühungen, kurz: täglicher Kleinarbeit, in deren unscheinbare Sphäre kein Scheinwerferlicht dringt.” Koblenzer Strasse: A Report on the Daily Routine of the Foreign Office, Deutsche Wochenschau 1963, 0:55. This chapter examines the 1963 version of the film. 115 “Und dieser Tag beginnt wie viele andere: ganz undramatisch, ganz alltäglich.” Koblenzer Strasse, 1:25.

The Discourse of Connectedness 251 old town (1:27), an almost provocative image considering the film’s context of international diplomacy, one that represents the absolute inversion of the opening. The quiet images of the cityscape, at this hour largely deserted, feature only very soft diegetic sound and provide a decisive counterpoint to the previous, spectacular images of foreign policy and the fanfare-like opening music. The narrative theme of “a city waking up” quite ironically alludes to the opening of Ruttmann’s 1927 film showing Berlin in the morning hours: this scene makes clear that Bonn does not have the same stature as the metropolis on the Spree river known from Berlin: Symphony of a Great City. The solitary, deadpan commentary “we are in Bonn” (1:57),116 together with a pan from the Rhine to a lone policeman patrolling the deserted river bank near the Bundeshaus (2:03), provide an ironic commentary on the scene’s permeating air of provincial quaintness. In its opening, the film thus far juxtaposes Bonn’s defining characteristics as the Federal Republic’s capital along the lines of the “Bonn effect”: the diplomatic spectacle, the film suggests, is set in a place that is strangely out of context with the grandeur of diplomatic events. With these images, the film underlines Bonn’s provisionality and posits the capital as a transitional place where (as the unassuming surroundings are to suggest) the taxpayer’s money was used wisely and sparingly. The next sequence introduces the Foreign Office building (built in 1955) on Koblenzer Strasse (today Adenauerallee), designed in the sober modernist style of New Building by Hans Freese, and charges it with symbolic effect. Freese’s building is a prime example of the sober architectural style that lent Bonn an air that according to architectural historian Michael Z. Wise reflected a “studiously downplayed architectural grandeur” compared to Berlin, and which ultimately turned Bonn into a “capital of self-effacement.”117 This functionalist style was preferred by the Federal Building Administration (Bundesbaudirektion), and its different interpretations can be traced from Bonn’s beginnings as capital all the way to Gunter Behnisch’s new Bundestag building of 1992. While the commentary narrates facts and data about the “sober functional building” (2:41),118 the pan along the uniform windows stresses its uniformity in appearance and unspectacular architecture (2:20–2:42), and visually introduces the main trope that the film’s narrative will associate with the building: efficiency.

116 “Wir sind in Bonn.” Koblenzer Strasse, 1:57. 117 Michael Z. Wise, Capital Dilemma: Germany’s Search for a New Architecture of Democracy (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998), 15, 23. 118 “Acht Stockwerke mit fast 1000 Zimmern umfasst der der nüchterne Zweckbau.” Koblenzer Strasse, 2:41.

252 Staging West German Democracy The scene transitions into several shots that render the building, presented in images radiating sober aestheticism, and its inhabitants as a giant, well-organized organism, working tirelessly for the benefit of the Federal Republic. The audience is presented with faceless cleaning ladies sweeping floors (2:52), the federal flag goes up anonymously on top of the building (3:04), officials check in and show their passes at the entrance, and a de-personalizing long shot filmed from the rooftop shows the parking lot filling up with cars in birds-eye perspective (3:39). A short scene on the arrival of Foreign Minister Gerhard Schröder (3:52), characterized by the commentary as “completely unassuming” (3:57),119 does not even mention his name. Close-ups of different clock faces, together with the leitmotivic announcement of the times of day through the commentary, regulate and organize the film’s narrative to give it an overall sense of order and machine-like progression. This effect is further enhanced by images of electronic telephone switchboards (11:13), and of an upward-pan through the building’s central staircase revealing empty, perfectly uniform-looking corridors (12:45). This lends the Foreign Office the air of a computer-like “brain” that skillfully orchestrates the complex ballet of foreign policy based on rational and predictable decisions. In the course of the film’s narrative, which keeps coming back to the building in between the narrative inserts, the Foreign Office’s symbolism of precision and predictability is skillfully translated to connote political stability. This is in line with a duality that organizes the entire film: the Federal Republic’s diplomatic influence is shown in engaging and exotic settings abroad, while the ministerial building on the Koblenzer Strasse in contrast serves as a setting in which the sober and unspectacular day-to-day work of policymaking prevails. Just as the film introduces different departments within the Foreign Office, short narrative inserts in the form of “diplomatic stories” set in different, often remote locations, each highlight a different aspect of the Federal Republic’s foreign policy. In the first of such inserts set in Milano, Italy, the viewer is presented with a scene in the passport department of the local German General Consulate, which has been “beleaguered,” as the commentary claims, “for months by young Italians, who would like to work in Germany” (5:31).120 The images of the future “guest workers” (Gastarbeiter) call attention to the economic miracle, the spectacular growth the country’s economy had undergone

119 “Seine alltägliche Ankunft vollzieht sich im Übrigen gänzlich unauffällig.” Koblenzer Strasse, 3:57. 120 “Die Passabteilung ist seit Monaten von jungen Italienern belagert, die in Deutschland arbeiten wollen.” Koblenzer Strasse, 5:31.

The Discourse of Connectedness 253 during the second half of the 1950s. In 1963, images like these were commonplace on television and in newsreels and served as an important symbol of the Federal Republic’s new material affluence—a source of pride for every West German. While this scene foregrounds the bureaucratic and rational side of the Federal Republic’s foreign diplomacy, this effect is immediately contrasted by a scene at the German consulate in Cairo, Egypt, which instantly exoticizes the locale by the commentary’s opening statement “other countries, other guards” (5:55).121 This introduces footage of an Egyptian guard post, clad in a headscarf and a local long robe emblazoned with the federal eagle, walking back and forth in front of the building. This scene juxtaposes its initial exoticism with sober rationalism when showing several German consulate officials (wearing shirts and ties instead of the guard’s local traditional garb) working in a storeroom and preparing the diplomatic courier mail (6:10–6:43). By employing colonial stereotypes, the film makes the point that even in remote and ostensibly “underdeveloped” areas, the German bureaucracy still functions perfectly. Of paramount importance in a film on the Federal Republic’s foreign policy and its international stature is of course the relationship to the United States, the country’s most important and most powerful military ally. Thus, it is not surprising that the reporting on the Federal Republic’s presence in Washington DC centers entirely on military aspects. Worlds away from the image of the defeated and occupied country that had sent Adenauer on his first visit to the US in order to humbly “advocate for his people” in 1953, the Washington-sequence seeks to portray the Federal Republic meeting eye-to-eye with its former conqueror and present ally. In this aspect, Koblenzer Strasse alludes to the stability discourse of the US state visit films. Key in the endeavor to create an impression of equality for the audience is a sequence that shows the West German military attaché, introduced explicitly to the audience as a “Lieutenant-Colonel of the German Bundeswehr,”122 being chauffeured in his limousine to a meeting at the Pentagon. The scene shows the attaché ascending the stairs to the Pentagon to meet a US officer, accompanied by the commentary “former adversaries have turned into partners and friends” (9:10).123 The German military attaché then can be seen to dominate the scene by patting his American counterpart on

121 “Andere Länder, andere Wächter.” Koblenzer Strasse, 5:55. 122 The original German is “Oberstleutnant der Deutschen Bundeswehr.” Koblenzer Strasse, 8:37. 123 “Aus Kriegsgegnern von einst sind Partner und Freunde geworden.“ Koblenzer Strasse, 9:10.

254 Staging West German Democracy the back (9:11), a reversal of roles compared to the times of the High Commission, when the Federal Republic existed under American tutelage. The film thus makes a point that with regard to the Federal Republic’s most powerful Western ally, finally an informal routine of eye-to-eye interaction has arrived. In the logic of the film’s narrative, this is a major milestone for the Federal Republic, provided by Adenauer’s relentless working for the country’s benefit and by the diplomatic efforts of the Foreign Office. In a narrative shift back to Bonn, the Federal Republic’s diplomatic impact is then encapsulated in a scene showing the Foreign Office’s large conference hall lying in darkness. As the hall’s drapes are slowly and anonymously opened, light slowly starts falling and thus consecutively illuminating a giant relief of a map of the world filmed in long shot, with the empty, ellipsoid arrangement of tables and microphones in the foreground (13:37). The “dawn” falling on the world is a symbolic statement that confidently locates the decisions taken at these meeting tables at the heart of world politics. To reinforce this argument, the empty hall is then shown “coming to life” with a flashback scene of US President Kennedy’s press conference in this location during his visit in June of 1963, where he expressed his sympathy for the German wish for unification and underlined his will to guarantee West Berlin’s security (13:51–14:50). Several of Koblenzer Strasse’s “diplomatic stories” center on cultural policy directed from Bonn. Images of the inauguration of a new German school in Milano (16:34) are followed with a scene from an international school in Brussels (17:37). The scenes make the point that the Federal Republic is intricately connected to its European neighbors, valuing the European project highly, while the European partner nations in turn value German culture and language. The commentary contends that about 400 such German schools exist outside of Germany (16:49). Images of international children with traditional German Schultüten suggest that with the customary inaugural present for school children,124 many non-German children receive the “gift” of German culture and education. This is rendered as strongly desired by the international community: “In some places the ratio of German children is only 10%” (17:06).125 Together with a scene of a Goethe Institut in Cairo (19:21), the film carefully decontaminates the traditional German notion 124 Schultüten are large, funnel-shaped “bags” of cardboard filled with sweets and presents that are customarily given to children on their first day of elementary school. 125 “Es sind keineswegs nur Kinder deutscher Eltern, die die deutschen Auslandsschulen besuchen. Mancherorts beträgt der Anteil der deutschen Kinder nur 10%.” Koblenzer Strasse, 17:06.

The Discourse of Connectedness 255 Kulturnation (nation of culture) from associations with Emanuel Geibel’s dictum “the German spirit once shall heal the world.”126 This was a popular slogan during colonial and National Socialist times. Koblenzer Strasse presents a country that confidently displays its rich cultural heritage as one of its crucial export goods. While the film successfully decoupled the notion of German cultural policy from associations with the Nazi past, another diplomatic story reflects Bonn’s efforts at managing the role of legal successor of the Third Reich, which involved restitution to victims of persecution (26:36–30:59). The image of the Federal Republic as a country committed to taking responsibility for the crimes of the Third Reich was an important image to project, especially in the intellectual atmosphere of 1963, when the film was re-edited, shortly before the Auschwitz Trials began in Frankfurt am Main. However, direct references remain very vague. The story in question is a journalistic portrait of the former lawyer Friedrich S. who had to emigrate from Germany to New York City “after 1933” (27:49),127 and who now works as a photographer. The year 1933 is the only direct reference to the Third Reich period, and equally, the viewer is not given any specifics as to why exactly Friedrich S. was persecuted. Yet, in the correspondence with the Deutsche Wochenschau during the film’s production, director von Tiedemann calls S. a “lawyer persecuted for racial and political reasons.”128 The aspect that S. might most likely be Jewish is therefore deliberately withheld in the film. The pseudonym S., together with the fact that S. is mainly shown from behind and the audience is rarely able to see his face directly in the scene, renders S. a prototypical victim. The camera then follows S. making his way alone through the metropolis, and finally shows him together with his wife in their small apartment. While the camera pans over paintings of S.’s hometown Dresden (28:38), over spines of contemporary books on the reconstruction of West Germany (28:34), and over the classical German literary canon of Stifter and Herder (28:50), the commentary emphasizes that while “the path of life may have been forcibly directed into a different direction, the intellectual

126 “Und es mag am deutschen Wesen / einmal noch die Welt genesen.” “Gedichte von Emanuel Geibel,” Projekt Gutenberg, http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/ gedichte-3396/202 (accessed April 4, 2017). 127 “Damals, nach 1933, musste der Jurist Friedrich S. in Dresden seine Koffer packen und mit seiner Frau in einem anderen Land Schutz suchen.” Koblenzer Strasse, 27:56. 128 “Hauptperson ist ein ehemaliger, aus rassischen und politischen Gründen verfolgter Jurist, der heute als Fotograf recht und schlecht sein Leben fristet.” Letter by von Tiedemann to the DW, November 6, 1960 (DW Archive).

256 Staging West German Democracy roots were not severed” (28:51).129 While on linguistic terms othering the Nazi period as an impersonal “force of nature,” this commentary reclaims S. as a German national entitled to restitution for his fate, the process of which is consequently shown. Through the contrast between panoramic shots of the impersonal metropolis and intimate renderings of the victim of persecution, this sequence aims to evoke empathy in the viewer. In his own words, director Heinrich von Tiedemann proudly described this segment as a “quite appealing restitution story,” and as “visually very impressive” in a letter written to the Deutsche Wochenschau’s leadership from New York.130 This aptly sums up the sequence’s intended effect. It was to create empathy and the understanding in the audience that the Federal Republic worked on mitigating the after effects of what the film carefully dresses as a human catastrophe, yet without dwelling too much on the anti-Semitic motivations for S.’s persecution. The film’s longest story of 13 minutes is devoted to the topic of developmental aid and is set in Conakry, Guinea. Just like Visiting Bonn, Koblenzer Strasse renders the Federal Republic under Adenauer as a technologically developed country that uses its extensive influence in foreign policy to bring the goods of its remarkable economic development to underdeveloped and ostensibly “primitive” nations. Throughout this segment, the film comments positively on the West German standard of living and the country’s humanitarian aspirations. At the same time, the topic of humanitarian aid is used in the film to portray the Federal Republic (and Bonn) as a crucial ally in the Western, anti-communist Cold War alliance, for the film reveals the German Democratic Republic to be equally active in Guinea, and to allegedly distribute propaganda against the Federal Republic. The scenes set in Guinea thus add an intriguing insight into Bonn’s role in the German–German propaganda war of the Cold War period. Especially by the time the film was re-edited in 1963, during the aftermath of the Berlin Wall, the Guinea sequence is a direct reference to the ossified German–German relationship. The ostensibly “enlightened” and humanitarian narrative stance on developmental aid clashes sharply with the film’s commentary, which displays a subtext with a decidedly colonialist and racist worldview. The segment’s opening presents the audience with the colonialist

129 “Ist auch der Lebensweg gewaltsam in eine andere Richtung gelenkt worden, die geistigen Wurzeln sind nicht abgerissen.” Koblenzer Strasse, 28:51. 130 “Entschädigt wurden wir hingegen durch eine recht ansprechende Wiedergutmachungsstory. [. . .] Es ist ein typischer Fall für die Situation der deutschen Emigranten, und ich hoffe, wir haben eine optisch sehr eindrucksvolle Geschichte daraus machen können.” Letter by von Tiedemann to the DW, November 6, 1960 (DW Archive).

The Discourse of Connectedness 257 standard trope of young men and women dancing in traditional costumes to the sound of chanting and drumming (32:33). The commentary explains the “emancipation of the colored nations” (31:28) with the words:131 “In former times, the great white father wanted to lead his black children towards the sun. Now Africa is leading itself” (33:20).132 The un-ironic use of the benevolent colonialist trope of the “great white father”133 in choice of image and word reveals a clash between the effort to show off the Bonn Republic’s humanitarian, progressive, post-racist side after the Third Reich, and an obvious persistence of racist thinking. Throughout the Guinea segment the film’s commentary displays an obvious and conscious refusal of regarding Africans as equals. The sequence contains a close-up of a discarded memorial stone engraved with the words “Lex” and “Justitia” (33:10), visually suggesting that the colonial times were determined by European “civilizational” values of codified law and justice. This is a continuation of a quintessentially colonialist discourse. While shooting in Guinea, the film’s director Heinrich von Tiedemann paints an image of Africans and post-colonial Africa as incompetent, uncivilized, and latently criminal in his correspondence with the Deutsche Wochenschau: “While in transit, during the loading in Bamako, the cheerful darkies threw around our luggage so much that all locks came off my private suitcases.”134 “Off the record,” von Tiedemann also commented to the Deutsche Wochenschau about economical matters and the African ability for self-administration in his letters: The bank of Guinea is populated with young boys with friendly smiles. They go about their work in an extremely cheerful manner; from time to time, some money is missing from the treasury.

131 “Was sich hier in Guinea abzeichnet, ist anderswo vielleicht schon weiter vorangetrieben, oder steht noch am Anfang: die Emanzipation der farbigen Völker.” Koblenzer Strasse, 31:28. 132 “Einst wollte der große weiße Vater seine schwarzen Kinder der Sonne entgegenführen. Jetzt führt Afrika sich selbst.” Koblenzer Strasse, 33:20. 133 The concept of the “great white father” was used by colonial powers in North America during the subjugation of the Native American tribes, and it was equally used by colonialist forces in India and Africa. See for example: Satadru Sen, Colonial Childhoods: The Juvenile Periphery of India, 1850–1945 (London: Anthem Press, 2005), 34; Margaret D. Jacobs, “Crossing Intimate Borders: Gender, Settler, Colonialism, and the Home,” Gendering Border Studies, eds. Jane Aaron, Henrice Altink, Chris Weedon (Cardiff: UWales Press, 2010), 168. 134 “Beim Transport haben die lieben Negerlein beim Umladen in Bamako unser Gepäck derart geschleudert, dass von meinen Privatkoffern sämtliche Schlösser abgeflogen sind . . .” Letter by von Tiedemann to DW, November 30, 1960 (DW Archive).

258 Staging West German Democracy Recently it was seven million. They had it booked wrong. C’est la vie! It can happen that the polite black youngster who exchanges your travelers’ checks at eleven is already led away in handcuffs by twelve, because they found him to have committed peculation. Who would hold such things against a political system that is so young?135 These comments illustrate that a supremacist, dismissive irony vis-à-vis African self-administration determined the perspective of the film’s director. The film’s ostensibly neutral stance in relation to African selfadministration thus needs to be considered as manufactured in view of the director’s essentialized notions of uncultivated “blackness” and cultivated “whiteness.” Viewed in light of von Tiedemann’s dismissive stance towards de-colonialization, it makes perfect sense that the film introduces a scene depicting Guineans studying German as “intellectual developmental aid” (35:55).136 The Guinea sequence is of particular interest with regard to a short segment that directly addresses the Cold War propaganda competition of the systems in general, and between West and East Germany in particular. As discussed earlier, this aspect had been carefully planned in Bonn during the film’s pre-production in September 1960. After introducing the ideological confrontation by showing the diplomatic missions of the respective “brother nations,” the Soviet Union and the US, the film presents a shot of the German Democratic Republic’s trade mission, while the commentary accuses it of “massive propaganda against the Federal Republic” (35:12). By highlighting that the Soviet Union’s cultural center was closed due to overtly propagandistic activities, and in mentioning the West German ambassador’s intervention against “this targeted slander campaign” (35:26),137 Koblenzer Strasse

135 “Die Bank von Guinea wird bevölkert von jungen, freundlich lächeinden Knaben. Sie verrichten ihre Arbeit äusserst vergnügt, zuweilen fehlt etwas Geld in der Staatskasse. Neulich waren es sieben Millionen. Man hatte sie falsch verbucht. C’est la vie! Es kann geschehen, dass der höfliche schwarze Jüngling, der einem um elf die Travellerschecks wechselt, bereits um halb zwölf in Handschellen abgeführt wird, weil man ihm einige Unterschleife nachgewiesen hat. Wer wird denn einem so jungen Staatswesen das nachtragen wollen.” Letter by von Tiedemann to DW, December 2, 1960 (DW Archive). 136 “Deutschkurse für Praktikanten ergänzen die Bemühungen um eine geistige Entwicklungshilfe.” Koblenzer Strasse, 35:55. 137 “Massive Propaganda gegen die Bundesrepublik im Schaufenster der sowjetzonalen Handelsmission. Die Regierung der Bundesrepublik wird als kriegslüstern und Nazi-hörig hingestellt. Ein Protest des deutschen Botschafters beendete fürs erste diese gezielte Verleumdungskampagne.” Koblenzer Strasse, 35:28.

The Discourse of Connectedness 259 makes it clear to its audience that the West and the Federal Republic are retaining the upper hand in the ideological Cold War confrontation that takes place in Guinea. A scene showing the screening of a Deutsche Wochenschau film on the visit of the Guinean President to Bonn in a remote village by means of a mobile film projection van maintained by the German consulate in Guinea forms the film’s final segment (41:10–43:18). These images of German civilization coming quite literally into the “African bush” (41:16) include the arrival of the VW van and the set-up of the mobile movie theater in the village. They are crosscut with images emphasizing ostensible African primitivism (showing curious children watching, women in the traditional dress, and simple houses). The film uses the images of the villagers watching the film projected by the mobile screening truck in a village square at night to establish a symbolism of enlightenment of the “dark continent” by the cultural West: “The mobile jungle theater is a significant resource of modern diplomacy and public relations. Here in the African bush, for a few hundred Africans the world got wider than ever before” (43:13).138 The essentialist use of “Africans” in this context, likening the circumstances shown in the Guinean village with all of Africa, renders the Guineans as “black children,” who still need to be led and enlightened by the “white father,” the Federal Republic. The film closes with images of Bonn, now at night, thereby completing the overall narrative’s concept of presenting a full day in the work of the Foreign Office. Interestingly, they are the same as in Visiting Bonn: the audience is again presented with footage from the diplomatic reception honoring the visit of the Thai royal couple at the Hotel Petersberg. In remarkably similar fashion, the film also uses the long shot of Adenauer, von Brentano, and Schröder, and the pan from the politicians to the Rhine valley panorama (44:26) to visually tie the film’s message to Konrad Adenauer’s political successes, and to anchor it in Bonn, the reluctant capital, as the origin of these policies. The recycling of the panorama shot with the politicians in the foreground indicates that the Press Office found this to be an especially powerful symbolism to visually anchor the films’ quite similar PR messages. The final shot of the film, a long shot of night-time traffic in Bonn, suggesting a trope of “the city never sleeps,” is commented thus: “and the connection to headquarters in Koblenzer Strasse is never lost” (44:47).139 This sentence 138 “Das fahrbare Urwaldkino ist ein bedeutsames Hilfsmittel moderner Diplomatie und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit. Hier im afrikanischen Busch wurde für ein paar hundert Afrikaner die Welt weit wie nie zuvor.” Koblenzer Strasse, 43:13. 139 “Und die Verbindung reißt niemals ab zur Zentrale in der Koblenzer Strasse.” Koblenzer Strasse, 44:47.

260 Staging West German Democracy encapsulates the way in which the film describes the Foreign Office, and the capital Bonn: a rather small and inconspicuous building in an unassuming town, yet the Foreign Office and Bonn are a nerve center of Western policymaking that maintains intricate connections to the world. Exactly these qualities, Koblenzer Strasse argues, enable the Federal Republic to interact on eye-level with its military allies, further the European project with its European partners, conduct a responsible and compassionate policy of restitution for the victims of the Third Reich, and bring the goods of German “civilization” to former colonies that it, in unabashedly colonialist fashion, still deems dependent on progress defined along European terms.

Conclusion: Two Complementary Views on Bonn Produced side by side by the Deutsche Wochenschau in 1960 and 1961, Visiting Bonn and Koblenzer Strasse form two complementary parts of a celebratory narrative that uses Bonn as a complex metaphor for the Federal Republic’s political ambitions and already impressive successes in foreign policy during Konrad Adenauer’s chancellorship. The provisional capital Bonn emerges as metonymic representation of the “Bonn Republic,” which by the time of the films’ releases had achieved a remarkable resurgence from the ruins of the Second World War. Both films highlight Adenauer’s integral role in the process of reconnecting Germany with the world through Bonn. They argue that through the intricate connections Adenauer established with the Western world through military and economic alliances, the Federal Republic rose to a heretofore unprecedented position of international respect, security and prosperity. The image of a newly-invented, postwar version of the German nation, an economic powerhouse that generously dispenses economic aid, and whose previously threatening military potential has now been successfully absorbed by its integration into NATO, is perfectly embodied in the films’ carefully crafted images of the soberly styled capital, its buildings, and its inhabitants. The films’ depiction of the intricately connected, yet provisional capital confidently reflects this new West German political temperament and describes it as fundamentally different from those of the Third Reich and the German Democratic Republic. Both films describe Bonn as intricately connected to Adenauer’s policy of Western integration, and the city emerges both as a precondition and consequence of this policy. In the process, Visiting Bonn and Koblenzer Strasse moderate the contradictions inherent in the Federal Republic’s founding as a separate, decidedly Western-oriented state by describing a capital that due to its low profile in German history and its provincialism would not endanger the old, all-German capital Berlin in case of reunification. Through the films’ discourse of connectedness, on

The Discourse of Connectedness 261 the other hand, Bonn emerges as fully functional and internationally respected de facto capital of the Federal Republic. Visiting Bonn develops the discourse of connectedness by showing “the world coming to Bonn” to pay their respects to this powerful country’s capital, and thus validating it. Koblenzer Strasse, on the other hand, emphasizes the discourse of connectedness through a symbolism that illustrates Bonn’s diplomatic footprint around the world. By striking this complicated balance, the films throw key challenges that came with installing and stabilizing the Federal Republic on the Cold War frontlines into sharp relief. The films are important historical documents that shed light on central PR strategies used by the federal government to promote this inherently problematic capital at the end of the Adenauer period. This was a crucial time for Bonn that saw the onset of new development planning in the federal district after the abolition of the building freeze that seriously hampered an organized development of the capital. A second crucial factor in Bonn’s development at that time, although the films do not directly allude to it, was the building of the Berlin Wall on August 13, 1961, an event which practically coincided with the films’ release. This event solidified the status quo of the German division, and with it, Bonn’s status as capital. In this sense, it is safe to say that the Berlin Wall reinforced the films’ arguments for Bonn. West Germans, shocked at the sudden change in the German Cold War landscape that abruptly ended still-lingering fantasies about Berlin as all-German capital, might now have more readily turned their attention to Bonn. If that was the case, a firm embedding of Bonn in the national consciousness was more important than ever. As the Adenauer period drew to a close, West Germans reluctantly made their peace with their temporary capital in the growing understanding that it might last for an indefinite amount of time. Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt’s declaration of government (Regierungserklärung) of January 18, 1973, in which he asserted that Bonn was the “federal capital” (“Bundeshauptstadt”),140 represents another stage in this development. This quieted the provisionality discourse about Bonn until the Wende-years of 1989/90, when Bonn’s provisionality was again re-emphasized to justify a costly move of the capital “back” to Berlin.

140 Krüger, Die Finanzierung der Bundeshauptstadt Bonn, 257.

262

Seven The Father of the Nation Discourse: Building Adenauer’s Legacy

Introduction The official celebration of Konrad Adenauer’s eighty-fifth birthday on January 5 and 6, 1961 in Bonn was an event intensely covered by the press. For two days, members of Adenauer’s cabinet, the opposition parties, representatives of the churches, and international diplomats streamed to the Federal Chancellery to congratulate the elderly chancellor, whom The Times on this occasion had lauded as “Adenauer the indestructible.”1 With the usual rancor in their reporting on Adenauer, however, the government-critical magazine Der Spiegel mocked a specific aspect of the festivities: It was 10.09 am last Thursday, in the small cabinet meeting room of the Federal Chancellery in Bonn. Uncle Konrad Adenauer celebrated his 85th birthday. In keeping with tradition, Protestant and Catholic orphans had been marched in as the first crowd of congratulators and had babbled rhymes that had been conceived by diligent nuns during lonely night hours. Uncle Federal Chancellor, dressed in a suit and of pale disposition with constantly runny nose, distributed Sarotti chocolates and posed among the German dwarfs for a group picture. From the children’s mouth he was told: ‘all the people big and small, are coming to you today to call.’2

1

2

Edgar Wolfrum, “Konrad Adenauer: Politik und Vertrauen,” in Charismatische Führer der deutschen Nation, ed. Frank Möller (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2004), 176. “Es war 10.09 Uhr am letzten Donnerstag, kleiner Kabinettssaal des Bundeskanzleramts zu Bonn. Onkel Konrad Adenauer feierte 85. Geburtstag. Als erste offizielle Gratulanten waren traditionsgemäß evangelische und katholische

263

264 Staging West German Democracy Cynically entitled “Cherub Parade,” (“Putten-Parade”), the Spiegel report then continues to detail the stream of congratulators from Bonn’s political and diplomatic circles, ultimately rendering these congratulators mere minions to the chancellor and likening them to the cherubs in Adenauer’s garden.3 While this article is a typical example of the contemporary criticism of the “chancellor democracy” (Kanzlerdemokratie) in the late Adenauer period, its provocative use of “uncle Adenauer” is striking. Apart from delivering a critique of the West German political process, this image conveys a scathing criticism and outright ridicule of Adenauer’s prevalent, paternalistic image as father of the nation. In contrast, Der Spiegel portrays the chancellor as a more distant and perhaps unloved, yet important relative, whom the “children” (orphans and politicians alike) had to humor reluctantly. This image is diametrically opposed to the media image that the Federal Press Office cultivated about Adenauer, which rendered him a beloved patriarch of the West German “national family.” Adenauer’s paternalistic image developed during the mid-1950s, while he presided over the political consolidation of the Federal Republic that found its formal capstone in the Bonn–Paris Conventions and subsequent accession to NATO in 1955. While Adenauer was seen as “loving father” of the POWs when he resolved the question of the last 10,000 German POWs in the Soviet Union that same year,4 by the time of his eighty-fifth birthday in 1961, Adenauer bore a much more comprehensive title. Celebratory medals to celebrate his birthday were engraved with the words “Conrad Adenauer Pater Patriae Germaniae.”5 As elaborated in chapter one, in a reverse conclusion, the image of Adenauer as the “national patriarch” renders West Germans as his “national family.”6 In attacking many Germans’ fond and long-standing reverence for Adenauer as their “father” through the image of the geriatric, runny-nosed, and unloved uncle, the Der Spiegel report on

Waisenkinder einmarschiert und hatten Reime gestammelt, die von emsigen Schwestern in einsamen Nachtstunden fabriziert worden waren. Der Onkel Bundeskanzler, im Cut und von fahler Gesichtsfarbe, mit stets schnupfenfeuchter Nase, verteilte Sarotti-Schokolade und stellte sich zum Paradebild zwischen die deutschen Zwerge. Ihm wurde aus Kindermund verkündet: ‘Alle Leute, groß und klein, stellen sich bei dir heut’ ein.” “Putten-Parade,” Der Spiegel, 3/1961, http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-32576643.html 3 4 5

6

“Putten Parade.” Moeller, War Stories, 89. The medal is featured in The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday, the film on Adenauer’s birthday celebrations at the Federal Chancellery. The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday, Deutsche Wochenschau 1961, 18:27. Schwarz, Wochenschau, 360–1.

The Father of the Nation Discourse 265 Adenauer’s eighty-fifth birthday stands in sharp contrast to the PR film the Deutsche Wochenschau produced on the event for the Federal Press Office, which is entirely based upon Adenauer’s paternalistic image as father of the nation. This chapter examines the way in which two Deutsche Wochenschau PR films on Konrad Adenauer and his political legacy employ his screen image of father of the nation to create a document of Adenauer’s stature as the Federal Republic’s unanimously respected elder statesman and his political legacy. The chapter analyzes two films, 1961’s The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday (Der 85. Geburtstag des Bundeskanzlers), and 1963’s In the Service of the Fatherland (Um das Vaterland verdient gemacht). This chapter argues that these PR films are both organized along a “father of the nation discourse.” This frame of analysis is based upon Uta Schwarz’s observations about Adenauer’s media image in the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel as rooted in a “relationship of authority between father and children, based on emotional ties, free of conflict and hierarchical.”7 The analyses in the preceding chapters very much verified Schwarz’s analysis on general terms, yet they were not specifically concerned with Adenauer’s image, but rather with the use of Adenauer’s image in promoting particular aspects of policy or in the manipulation of collective memory. The father of the nation discourse, in contrast, considers the relationship described in Schwarz’s statement above as the constitutive element of the films’ narratives. It argues that the films scrutinized in this chapter serve no other purpose than to reinforce Adenauer’s position in public perception as father of the nation. It sheds light on Adenauer’s role in an important national founding myth that provided a figure of identification both on affective and rational/political terms: as an object of emotional devotion directed at an elderly father figure, and as the originator of a successful West German postwar democracy. In this regard, the two PR films analyzed in this chapter add an important aspect to the Press Office’s overall project of West German nation-building through PR films. The father of the nation discourse offers a dedicated frame of analysis that traces the constitutive factors of Adenauer’s patriarchal image, and its filmic employment as a tool for policymaking: what are the topics and visual tropes attached to Adenauer’s patriarchal image and how was this image used to invite affective identification with his policies? At the same time, the analysis of the correspondence on the films and other projects between the Press Office and the Deutsche Wochenschau contextualizes these topics and tropes as part of a larger PR strategy.

7

Schwarz, Wochenschau, 360.

266 Staging West German Democracy Lastly, this framework offers a case study in how a postwar democratic society adapted a long-established tradition, the filmic tribute to a leader, to a democracy.8 The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday of 1961 is analyzed as the purest manifestation of the father of the nation discourse: the film is entirely organized around an unabashed celebration of Adenauer as pater patriae and serves no other purpose than to reinforce that image. The following analysis examines how the film’s presentation of Adenauer fostered, to use Schwarz’s concept, an “affective connection” between his politics and what the film presents as Adenauer’s persona.9 Hereafter, the chapter will provide a discussion of the Federal Press Office’s subsequent planning efforts for “legacy films” on Adenauer, thereby documenting the Press Office’s efforts at positioning the chancellor as a statesman of historic proportions at the time he was to leave office. Finally, the analysis of the 1963 film In the Service of the Fatherland, which ultimately resulted from these efforts, reveals that the film in many ways was meant to work as a celebratory milestone in the Federal Republic’s still ongoing efforts at nation-building. In telling the stories of these film projects, the chapter traces the development of the Federal Press Office’s PR strategies from a “personal tribute film” to celebrate Adenauer as pater patriae, to a “legacy film” commemorating his political achievements at the time of his leaving office. In producing such films, the Press Office and the Deutsche Wochenschau operated within a long-standing tradition. Filmic homages to political leaders had been part and parcel of German filmmaking from its beginnings. These films predominantly glorified a political leader on account of his person and created an amalgam of his or her celebrated personality and political achievements, so that for the audience, one becomes inseparable from the other. This type of filmmaking began during the German Kaiserreich (1871–1918), when in the words of Sabine Hake, “the royal family turned to film as a promotional tool for the monarchy.”10 The 1912 documentary The German Emperor on Film (Der deutsche Kaiser im Film) can be seen as an early example of such an approach that glorified both Wilhelm II’s personality and his achievements as monarch. Later on, during the Third Reich, filmic celebrations of Hitler proliferated, as for example in Leni Riefenstahl’s

8

As stated in the introduction, the thematic limitations of this study prevent an exhaustive examination of such genre and stylistic continuities with films from previous German forms of state. Nevertheless, this chapter will focus on a brief comparison of The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday with a film on Hitler’s fiftieth birthday. 9 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 360. 10 Sabine Hake, German National Cinema, 2nd edn (London: Routledge, 2008), 14.

The Father of the Nation Discourse 267 infamous 1935 propaganda masterpiece Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens). Not surprisingly, the Third Reich’s newsreel system, quickly brought into lockstep, followed suit in praising the National Socialists. In 1939, for example, the UFA newsreel division produced a special edition of its Ufa-Tonwoche (Nr. 451) to honor Hitler on his fiftieth birthday. As will be discussed below, The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday is in many respects markedly similar to the film on Hitler’s birthday and revives a “decontaminated” version of the personality cult perfected during the Third Reich. Apart from figuring prominently in these films, Adenauer shared with Wilhelm II and Hitler a willingness to actively participate in these productions. As Peter Schamoni has shown in his documentary on Wilhelm II on film, the German emperor used the new medium “for his spectacular media stagings.”11 Hitler likewise took a keen interest and active role in the production of newsreels.12 In previous chapters, this book has provided evidence that Adenauer at times personally assisted,13 and also intervened,14 in the production of film material on himself. The analysis of The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday reveals that Adenauer equally assisted in the filming of this PR film by posing for staged scenes.

Celebrating the Father of the Nation: The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday (1961) as Filmic Tribute Adenauer’s eighty-fifth birthday on January 5, 1961 offered a chance for the Federal Press Office to augment its extensive visual archive on the chancellor by a film that presented a more “private” perspective on the elder statesman. By then, Adenauer had been federal chancellor for twelve years—an eternity as perceived by his admirers, and especially his foes. In view of Adenauer’s unique public status as “perpetual” chancellor and national patriarch, it should come as no surprise that the Press Office decided to produce a filmic homage to Adenauer for the event. Nineteen sixty-one was a federal election year, and the agency was readily aware that the occasion of such an anniversary and the

11 Peter Schamoni, “Majestät brauchen Sonne,” Schamoni Film & Median GmbH, http://www.schamoni.de/filme/filmliste/majestaet- brauchen-sonne/ (accessed April 8, 2016). 12 Wolfram Pyta, “Adolf Hitler’s (Self-)Fashioning as Genius: The Visual Politics of National Socialism’s Cult of Genius,” in Pictorial Cultures and Political Iconographies: Approaches, Perspectives, Case Studies from Europe and America, ed. Udo Hebel and Christoph Wagner (Berlin-New York: De Gruyter, 2011), 166. 13 See the unreleased material mentioned in the introduction with Adenauer’s face “superimposed” over the painting “Christ as Man of Sorrows.” 14 See Adenauer’s intervention to help cameraman Wilhelm Luppa during Kennedy’s 1963 state visit to the Federal Republic in chapter three.

268 Staging West German Democracy associated festivities brought with them unique PR opportunities. Most importantly, it provided a chance to highlight the personal and more informal aspects of Adenauer’s personality, and to thereby further refine the chancellor’s screen image as national patriarch. Such rationales directly informed the production of The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday. Granting the audience first-row seats at Adenauer’s two day-long birthday celebration at the Federal Chancellery, the film portrayed the events along the lines of a family tribute to a beloved patriarch. Released in May of 1961, the 24 min b/w film chronicles the two days of Adenauer’s official birthday celebration predominantly set at the Palais Schaumburg, Adenauer’s Federal Chancellery. For the most part, the film creates the impression of a steady, never-ending procession of deferential congratulators mocked by Der Spiegel. Apart from the orphan children, this procession includes Adenauer’s family, the Ministers of his cabinet, the leaders of the opposition, diplomats from all over the world, and ecclesiastic dignitaries. Due to the nature of the topic, the Federal Chancellery played a role in the film’s planning and production as well and reserved the final right of approval. The fact that the Chancellery was involved meant for the Deutsche Wochenschau that communication with the Press Office was more complicated than usual. Production on the film started immediately after the event in January 1961 and took until May to complete.15 The Deutsche Wochenschau presented a first raw cut to the Press Office only four days after principal shooting had been completed, on January 10.16 The Press Office then requested several rounds of changes. The Deutsche Wochenschau implemented the requested changes in January and February of 1961. They mainly concerned the music for scenes involving the Bundeswehr marching band and the Grand Tattoo (Großer Zapfenstreich) military ceremony in Adenauer’s honor. The Deutsche Wochenschau was ordered to dub these sequences with studio music recordings. The Press Office also asked that a longer scene depicting the visit by Adenauer’s rival in the federal election of that year, Willy Brandt, be reduced to merely a handshake,17 out of an apparent effort to limit Brandt’s screen time. The Press Office also ordered the Deutsche Wochenschau writer in charge of the commentary to come to Bonn to directly receive directions from the Federal Chancellery to ensure accuracy and the proper chronology in the naming of the many personalities featured in the film.18 15 Letter by Wiers and Purzer (DW) to Betz (FPO), May 2, 1961 (DW Archive). 16 Letter by Purzer and Wiers (DW) to Kurt Betz (FPO), January 16, 1961 (DW Archive). 17 Letter by Freibüter (FPO) to Wiers (DW), January 24, 1961 (BArchiv B145/1475). 18 Letter by Freibüter (FPO) to Wiers (DW), January 24, 1961 (BArchiv B145/1475).

The Father of the Nation Discourse 269 On February 23, the Deutsche Wochenschau film editor assigned to the project traveled to Bonn to screen a draft copy of the completed film for the Press Office. The agency then demanded several further changes to the film’s cut, and the editor was ordered to reappear with the changes on March 3.19 The requested modifications again concerned the chronology of congratulations. A second request was to include more footage of foreign diplomats arriving to congratulate Adenauer.20 This would bolster the impression of Adenauer’s international reputation. Work on the film’s audio track extended into late April, when the Press Office demanded still more changes to the soundtrack and commentary. An internal Deutsche Wochenschau memorandum lists as the changes’ main points “a revision of the music with the goal of lending the film a more festive character. They are requesting music by Haydn.”21 There is no archival data available on the number of copies made and the film’s screening circumstances. The opening credits introduce the film as “filmed by the Deutsche Wochenschau for the Deutsche Reportagefilm” (0:13).22 The framing of this production as a release by Deutsche Reportagefilm,23 and the rather unusual use of “filmed” in this context (instead of “produced”), distances the Deutsche Wochenschau as a well-known governmentcontrolled company from the film. On the other hand, the expression “filmed” in this context also suggests a sense of intimacy regarding the film’s audience, by connoting a private home movie made by a family member. This expression to a certain degree obscures the fact that the film was shot, planned, and orchestrated by PR professionals with a specific PR message in mind: to invite affective identification with Adenauer as father of the nation. The choice of words already alludes to one of the film’s main tasks: to offer its audience a seemingly private, behind-the-scenes glimpse into Adenauer’s life as both family and national patriarch. The film invites the viewer, in a figurative sense, to be a guest at Adenauer’s birthday party.

19 Memorandum (DW), February 24, 1961 (DW Archive). 20 Internal Memorandum by Noelle to Cleinow (DW), n.d. (DW Archive). 21 “Musikalische Neubearbeitung mit dem Ziel, dem Film einen festlicheren Charakter zu geben. Es wird gewünscht, Haydn-Musiken zu verwenden.” Internal memorandum by Wiers to Cleinow (DW), April 24, 1961 (DW Archive). 22 “Gefilmt von der Deutschen Wochenschau für die Deutsche Reportagefilm.” The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1961, 0:13. 23 As previously mentioned in chapter two, the Deutsche Reportagefilm was a PR outlet of the Federal Chancellery alongside many others, and the Federal Press Office usually used the company seated in Remagen for the copying and distribution of the PR films.

270 Staging West German Democracy For Schwarz, Adenauer’s image in the newsreels complicates the distinction between what is ostensibly private and what is official: “In his case, public and private function rather are intimately mixed in purposeful and targeted fashion in the ongoing newsreel reporting, and Adenauer is staged overwhelmingly as father or grandfather in the process.”24 Schwarz also observes about the regular Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel that it “constructed an image of a close and harmonic bond, which due to the diversity of the images was varied, but yet stereotypical” between Adenauer and his family, which creates the impression of “a patriarch cared for and respected by his family.”25 Adenauer’s hybrid image of elder statesman and beloved father of the nation is the constitutive element of the film’s narrative and key to the film’s PR effect: by intermingling images of and thus blurring the boundaries between Adenauer’s biological family and representatives of West German public life and politics, the film creates the impression of a devoted tribute by Adenauer’s extended “national family,” West Germany. The film’s opening creates the impression of a beloved patriarch celebrating his birthday surrounded by a circle of loving family. Eventually, as the narrative unfolds, Adenauer’s biological family, which the film initially portrays in paying tribute to their patriarch, is slowly being expanded to include more and more of the Federal Republic’s social fabric. Ultimately, Adenauer emerges from this construction as the metonymic representative of the Federal Republic and its most important identification figure—connoting the political and economic successes of the Bonn Republic, its international prestige, and its social conservatism. The film’s narrative of being granted a seat at the birthday table of the national patriarch begins with an exterior long shot of Adenauer’s family home that immediately transitions to a shot of a breakfast table, festively decorated with roses and a singular candle in a silver holder. The audience is presented with two chairs arranged around the round table, with the camera position occupying the third “chair” at equal distance from the other two chairs. The camera is positioned so as to give the impression to the audience that they are seated directly at the family table. Adenauer’s housemaid is shown lighting the candle, thus announcing the chancellor’s arrival (0:25). With its shots of candles, flowers, and congratulations, the film’s opening enumerates in many ways several standard “family birthday”

24 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 359. 25 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 360.

The Father of the Nation Discourse 271 tropes in the setting of a typical bourgeois German family. Crosscut by a shot of a mantle clock displaying precisely 7 am (such shots of clocks are the film’s leitmotif), Adenauer then enters the room together with his son, Monsignor Paul Adenauer (0:34). Their handshake, filmed from the audience’s “imaginary seat at the table,” suggests that the son is congratulating the father, and the younger Adenauer then proceeds to help his father into his chair (suggesting both affection and respect). This sequence is obviously staged for the camera with Adenauer’s active participation. Together with a close-up counter shot of roses (Adenauer’s widely-publicized hobby was raising roses, 0:47) and images of Adenauer and his son having breakfast (0:49), this creates the effect of immediacy and intimacy with the subjects. Together with the film’s shot composition calling up visual “Adenauerisms” for the audience (Catholicism and roses), the viewer is literally invited to sit down at the Adenauer family table during a very “private” moment. The scene is then ended with another cutaway to the mantle clock, transitioning to the next scene that portrays Adenauer taking part in a Holy Mass conducted by his son at a Bonn hospital chapel. Such references to Adenauer’s Catholic faith had become a standard trope of Adenauer’s screen image in the PR films by 1961 and drew on longestablished notions of patriarchal leadership. They were frequently employed to emphasize, for example, Adenauer’s anti-Communism (as in a scene of him praying in a church in Moscow that so far had survived the Kremlin’s anti-religious policies in 1956’s Meeting in the Kremlin), or his close affinity with the United States’ cultural values (through a scene of him attending a church service with the family of Vice-President Johnson in 1961’s Welcome Dr. Adenauer). Depending on the context, they were also used to lend Adenauer’s screen image qualities of a redeemer or savior figure.26 The film then presents Adenauer exiting the chapel to the cheers and applause of an assembled crowd (1:51). There are shots of the Beethoven Gymnasium school choir, and close-ups of individual children waiting in front of the building with flowers. These are interspersed with long shots of crowds waiting by Adenauer’s car. Featuring congratulators from all walks of life and ages, these images blur the boundaries between the official and the private, ultimately resulting in the image of a publicly adored and elderly father. The blurring of the boundaries between the ostensibly “private” and “official” realms continues during film’s reporting on the celebrations at the Federal Chancellery. After an elaborately shot sequence of

26 See chapter one for details.

272 Staging West German Democracy

Figure 7.1 Adenauer among his family during the celebration of his eighty-fifth birthday at the Federal Chancellery. The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday (Der 85. Geburtstag des Bundeskanzlers, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1961). German Federal Archive. Adenauer inspecting a Bundeswehr guard of honor, the film transitions indoors, and the next sequence portrays Adenauer with another “honor formation.” His family is the first group of congratulators at the Chancellery. While the narrative focuses on Adenauer accepting the congratulations of his relatives, the camera almost exclusively focuses on the children. The commentary underlines Adenauer’s image as a true family patriarch by stressing his extensive offspring: “seven children, six sons or daughters in law, and twenty-one grandchildren wish good luck and health for the new year ahead” (3:25).27 Just like the breakfast sequence, this imagery, featuring close-ups of the family members, references stereotypical tropes of birthday celebrations for family patriarchs.

27 “Sieben Kinder, sechs Schwiegertöchter oder Söhne, und 21 Enkel wünschen Glück und Gesundheit für das neue Lebensjahr.” The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday, 3:25.

The Father of the Nation Discourse 273 Without original sound and accompanied by sentimental violin music, the sequence depicts Adenauer’s grandchildren holding flowers and presents and reciting poems, while the grown-up part of the family looks on indulgently. Adenauer acknowledges the ovations by smiling and with a handshake and a pat on each child’s shoulder, much as he will acknowledge his political congratulators later on in the film. The film’s narrative then subtly extends the circle of Adenauer’s “children” through a scene involving the aforementioned orphan children, who just like Adenauer’s biological offspring, perform in costumes and recite poems (4:08–4:29). In their sentimentality, these images stand in sharp contradiction to Der Spiegel’s vitriolic mocking of the trope. Images of Adenauer meeting orphan children were a regular part of the Deutsche Wochenschau’s reporting on Adenauer’s charity activities, and also appear in 1963’s In the Service of the Fatherland. The commentary informs the audience that Adenauer regularly sends Christmas gifts to the orphanage, and that the children now honor him by giving him self-made presents, much as they would for their biological grandfathers or fathers. Through joining this scene directly to the preceding scene featuring Adenauer’s grandchildren, and by maintaining the visual tropes of a patriarch’s birthday party, the film in effect likens the orphans to Adenauer’s biological relatives. This is a strategy that the film successively extends to eventually include Adenauer’s political partners and opponents, and in fact every person from German public life that features in the film. As a result, Adenauer towers as a true pater patriae, the father of Germany, in these scenes. It thus makes sense in the narrative logic that the film’s narrative moves to ever-widening circles of persons offering their congratulations without any interruption, change of location, or other narrative caesura: all congratulators, no matter biological family, orphan children, politicians, diplomats, or ecclesiastic dignitaries, are presented lining up in similar fashion to pay their respects. The shift from the film’s reporting on ostensibly “private” to “official” matters is therefore almost imperceptible. The fact that Adenauer receives all his official guests in the same room at the Chancellery, while his family remains visible in the background throughout, emphasizes the effect of this visual drawing together of the West German “extended family.” With the leitmotivic close-ups of clocks and watches separating the individual congratulators, the film creates the impression of a fast-paced, precisely-timed, and seemingly endless succession of congratulators that in its presentation is reminiscent of the assembly lines which at that time powered the West German economic miracle. Federal President Heinrich Lübke, Adenauer’s Cabinet, and the Bundestag President are among the first political powerbrokers who pay Adenauer their respects, followed by the Minister Presidents (including the previously discussed

274 Staging West German Democracy brief shot of the Lord Mayor of Berlin Willy Brandt, 8:55), representatives of the German churches, the Central Council of German Jews (Zentralrat der Juden), the labor and police unions, and diplomats from all over the world. The film’s arrangement of ovations and tributes creates the impression that Adenauer’s universal acclaim transcends political and religious boundaries. The setting and semi-private atmosphere of a patriarch’s birthday party clearly elevates Adenauer beyond the status of a “normal” politician in the film. In the process, the birthday presents play a crucial role, as they act as symbols referring to either the visual “Adenauerisms” connoting his private interests or aspects of his personality (rose gardening, Christian art, his Catholic faith) well known to the audiences, or, equally on the level of visual symbolism, to his political achievements in his official position as federal chancellor. A scene that reports on the representatives of the Protestant church in West Germany presenting Adenauer with an antique illustrated volume by the title Of Holy Cologne (Vom Heiligen Köln) alludes to Adenauer’s time as the city’s Lord Mayor and at the same time highlights his interest in Christian devotional art (6:04). The present by the Head of the Federal Chancellery Hans Globke, an illustrated book on the Kremlin (4:55), reminds the audience of one of Adenauer’s most important political achievements, the release of the last remaining German POWs from Soviet captivity in 1955. A volume on the Bundeswehr presented by Minister of Defense Franz Josef Strauss alludes to the Federal Republic’s successful integration into the NATO defense alliance under Adenauer’s leadership in 1955. The film then presents a section on foreign diplomats conveying the congratulations of their respective nations (9:17–12:23). This section is introduced by the constantly-repeating shot of the diplomats’ cars arriving (with the flags on the cars announcing their nationality), and the car door being opened by a chancellery aide, all in exactly the same framing. The shot composition’s repetitive monotony, which goes on for more than one minute without commentary, underlines the impression of the entire international community lining up to pay their respects to Adenauer. The film’s detailed description of the international dignitaries’ visits highlights Adenauer’s status as a statesman respected across the globe, who successfully regained the international community’s trust after the Third Reich, the Federal Republic’s international figurehead. Repeated insertions of images of Adenauer’s family throughout the reporting on the stream of congratulators (7:17, 8:16, 12:27) continue the film’s strategy of blurring the boundaries between Adenauer’s biological and extended family, West Germans, and through the diplomats, the world. A visually striking scene shows the President of the Council of the European Economic Community Walter Hallstein, the President of the European Atomic Energy Community Hirsch, and the President

The Father of the Nation Discourse 275 of the Montan-Union Helbig presenting Adenauer with what the commentary only refers to as a “wooden sculpture of several hundred years of age” (14:39).28 The statue seems to depict an Old Testamentarian saint, most likely John the Baptist. In the following, a sequence of shots through their composition implies a similarity between Adenauer and the saint. The sequence begins with a shot in which the audience sees Adenauer from behind shaking hands with Hallstein and the other guests, while an aide carries the statue into the room, with the statue’s face facing Adenauer and the audience (14:30). The next medium shot frames Adenauer from behind with an eye line that matches the statue’s, whose face, roughly in the frame’s center, now points straight towards the audience (14:33). After two transitional shots of Hallstein talking to Adenauer, the audience is presented with another eye line match between Adenauer and the statue, this time filmed in a medium shot at a 90 degree angle (14:50). A medium close-up of Adenauer’s face contemplating the statue now follows, this time directly facing the audience and the statue’s head from behind, a shot which lasts a full 6 seconds (14:51). Adenauer seems to contemplate the statue’s face, then casts his eyes downward as if in devotion and respect. The sequence then returns to the 90-degree eye line shot (14:59) and ends in a medium close-up of two onlookers with grave expressions on their faces, making the point that even the surrounding people had had a profound revelation to the extent of Adenauer’s similarity with the saint (15:02). As much as Adenauer in his humble pose seems to defer in front of the devotional statue, the sequence’s symbolism insists on this parallel. Much like the “superimposition” of Adenauer’s face on a painting depicting Jesus Christ discussed in the introduction, the scene seems to liken Adenauer to the saint, positioning the chancellor not only as pater patriae, but as a redeemer figure who blessed the country with its proverbial, “miraculous” economic upturn.29 The latter is embodied in the film by the congratulators Hallstein, Hirsch, and Helbig, who through their offices all serve as representatives of the Federal Republic’s integration into a European framework of peaceful cooperation and economic growth. The scene is a case in point of how the PR films used religious symbolisms, particularly the redeemer figure, to “generate communicativestrategic frameworks” to access the discourse of politics, and to

28 “Sie überreichen dem Kanzler eine mehrere Jahrhunderte alte Holzplastik.” The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday, 14:39. 29 See my discussion in chapter one of how the appropriation of the redeemer figure is connected to “Western narratives and phantasms, which accompany the manufacture and stabilization of masculine power.”

276 Staging West German Democracy

Figure 7.2 Adenauer looking at a devotional statue. The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday. German Federal Archive. “discursively invoke a hegemonic masculine identity.”30 This concept lies at the heart of Adenauer’s media image. From the unreleased scene discussed in the introduction, to many scenes referred to in the preceding chapters, to this reference: in its manifold incarnations, the PR films employ the image of the Christian redeemer figure to elevate Adenauer beyond the rational discourse of politics into the realm of national myth. By aligning Adenauer with an ages-old discourse of masculine redeemer figures,31 the chancellor is beatified for single-handedly turning around the fate of a formerly occupied and devastated Germany. The film’s reporting on a Grand Tattoo (Großer Zapfenstreich) military ceremony in the courtyard of the Federal Chancellery that ends the reporting on day one of the celebrations drives home this point. The editing of the sequence ceremoniously combines Adenauer’ image of the national patriarch and redeemer with the nation, to the effect that an amalgam is created out of the two, clearly elevating Adenauer beyond

30 Glawion, Haschemi, and Husman-Kastein, “Einleitung,” 14. 31 See: Glawion, Haschemi, and Husman-Kastein, “Einleitung,” 13.

The Father of the Nation Discourse 277

Figure 7.3 Adenauer (center) during the Grand Tattoo ceremony in honor of his eighty-fifth birthday. The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday. German Federal Archive. the status of an elected head of government. This effect predominantly arises from shots filmed from the perspective of the music corps assembled in the courtyard and looking upward to the second-story window, where Adenauer can be seen in dark profile, backlit by the lights in the room (16:25). The editing then cuts to a medium close-up of Adenauer’s face, filmed in profile, looking down upon the scenery (16:30). Adenauer in these images radiates gravitas, and in being physically elevated above the musicians and the public spectators (crosscut at 16:42), the film’s editing reflects Adenauer’s status as a symbolic signifier of the German nation. The film further develops this impression in the following sequence. After the band leader’s invocation “Helmets off for prayer,” the alternation of close-ups of soldiers’ faces in steel helmets, illuminated by torchlight, and Adenauer’s face looking down at the soldiers, creates the impression that the “prayer” and the soldiers’ service are dedicated to Adenauer personally—a problematic parallelism to the Third Reich’s practice of letting its soldiers take their oath on Hitler personally. After

278 Staging West German Democracy the command “Helmets on! Present the rifles,” the music corps intones the Deutschlandlied. Shots of Adenauer’s family, Hallstein, other official guests (17:33), the soldiers holding torches (17:37), the assembled public (17:44), the lines of the music corps (17:53), of Adenauer filmed from below and, lastly, of Adenauer in profile, looking down, visually draw together the chancellor’s family, political partners, the Bundeswehr, and the general public. The national anthem’s musical climax is accompanied in visual terms by a progression of three increasingly tight close-up shots, of which the last one is a close-up of Adenauer’s face in semi-profile (18:07). This visual assemblage of different representatives of the Federal Republic’s sociopolitical composition, set to the soundtrack of the Deutschlandlied, achieves two effects. First, it creates a visual amalgam of the notions “Adenauer” and “nation.” Second, the differences between all the different Germans assembled in his honor disappear in favor of one shared characteristic as “national German family” with Adenauer as their “father.” The opening of the film’s reporting on the second day of celebrations emphasizes the effect of the Grand Tattoo ceremony from the night before by featuring a close-up of an aureus magnus (18:11), a medal commissioned by the federal state of Bavaria that features Adenauer’s head in profile. This completes the succession of profile shots that ended the Grand Tattoo scene and in a symbolic sense immortalizes this moment. The film’s commentary highlighting the medal’s inscription, “Conrad Adenauer Pater Patriae Germaniae” (18:27), represents a performative enactment of Adenauer’s status as father of the nation. The use of the non-specific Latin “Germaniae” corresponds to the Adenauer government’s assertion to speak for all of divided Germany, including the citizens of the German Democratic Republic. Apart from the scene’s underlining of Adenauer as father of the German nation, it historicizes Adenauer for posterity at a time when he was soon to leave office. Hewn into gold, Adenauer as the first federal chancellor becomes a national treasure, a living legend, honored by a personality cult usually reserved for kings or dictators, such as, most recently, Adolf Hitler. Indeed, the similarities in the personality cult between Adenauer and Hitler cannot be overlooked and necessitate a brief comparison between the aforementioned Ufa special feature’s reporting on Hitler’s fiftieth birthday (Ufa-Tonwoche Nr. 451) and The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday. This reveals close similarities in visual topoi and the narrative structure of several scenes, even if the overall narrative of the Ufa film, which involves 15 minutes of an enormous military parade through downtown Berlin in Hitler’s honor, serves obviously quite different aims and reflects acquiescence to Hitler’s megalomaniac’s personality and image.

The Father of the Nation Discourse 279 The Ufa-Tonwoche portrays Hitler at the film’s opening at his official residence in the old Reich Chancellery where he receives the presents and ovations of Germans and foreign dignitaries, as well as a serenade from his bodyguard regiment, Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. The images of Adenauer accepting the honors of the Bundeswehr band in front of the Federal Chancellery with his family in the background are reminiscent of Hitler and other Nazi leaders, such as Himmler and Goebbels with his children, standing together in the entryway of the Berlin Reich Chancellery (5:05). The scenes in both films use shots of the “family” (in Hitler’s case a “family” made up out of old allies and Goebbels’ children) and ordinary citizen bystanders to similar effects: to invite affective identification with the political leader, but also to create the sense of an extended “national family” gathered round the patriarch. In both films, tropes from family birthday celebrations are re-appropriated to heads of state: a serenade, the family with children gathered around the birthday boy, and congratulators (in the form of international political leaders and dignitaries). For example, just like Adenauer in The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday receives the diplomatic corps at the Federal Chancellery, the Ufa-Tonwoche portrays Hitler receiving the good wishes of friendly states, such as the Minister President of Slovakia (5:42). The films’ similarities continue with the strategy of positing their subjects as metonymic representatives of the German nation. The films’ editing achieves this through strikingly similar means, such as “profile shots”, close-ups of medals and pictures bearing the portrait, as well as by emphasizing the extraordinary number of ovations the person receives, and by connecting national symbols to the person in the films’ narratives. The Ufa-Tonwoche uses several such devices, for example through showing altar-like portraits, busts of Hitler, as well as banners, with the commentary calling him “the creator of Great-Germany” (0:45),32 with the use of the biblical German “Schöpfer” for “creator,” to elevate Hitler to a god-like status. The glorification of Hitler continues with the commentary that “presents for the Führer from all districts of the Reich and all parts of the population are constantly being brought to the Reich Chancellery” (0:57).33 An idolization through presents is equally a constitutive element of the narrative of the PR film on Adenauer. Lastly, the Ufa-Tonwoche also uses the Deutschlandlied over images of tributes to Hitler by the people to create an amalgam of Hitler and Germany. The film ends with a shot montage of the population of Berlin’s personal tributes to Hitler, set to the

32 “dem Schöpfer Großdeutschlands . . .” Ufa-Tonwoche Nr. 451, 0: 45. 33 “Unaufhörlich werden aus allen Gauen des Reiches und allen Schichten des Volkes Geschenke für den Führer in die Reichskanzlei gebracht.” Ufa-Tonwoche Nr. 451, 0:57.

280 Staging West German Democracy German national anthem, a composition that carries a significant resemblance to the closing of The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday. The audience is presented with images of soldiers carrying flags, crowds showing the Hitler salute, close-ups of youth looking upwards in admiration of Hitler (19:41), and, as a final image, Hitler reciprocating the salute, looking downward from an elevated window of the Reich Chancellery (19:45). It therefore seems as if the Deutsche Wochenschau cameramen and film editors, many of whom had been employed in the Nazi newsreel industry, had drawn some principal inspiration for The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday from the Ufa-Tonwoche Nr. 451. The similarities just briefly outlined here illustrate the ways in which the filmic vocabulary of the personality cult transitioned from fascism to democracy almost unchanged—this should not be a surprise in the face of the obvious and numerous continuities between the Nazi newsreel system and the Deutsche Wochenschau in terms of personnel. Even a superficial comparison of the Deutsche Wochenschau PR films will produce overwhelming evidence of numerous stylistic continuities, and more research in the form of a dedicated study is needed on this issue.34 In embellishing Adenauer’s status as father of the nation, The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday emerges as a version of the traditional genre of the tribute film that was decontaminated on democratic terms to avoid only the most obvious references to the Third Reich period. It nonetheless perpetuated the personality cult that the Third Reich newsreel system had perfected in its reporting on Hitler by relying on very similar visual tropes, narrative premises, shot composition, commentary, and editing. This serves as a potent reminder to the extent in which Adenauer’s screen image in the PR films was based on prior tributes from the Third Reich. Both films celebrate a leader who, as it is suggested, singlehandedly created a “new” Germany that is portrayed as widely embraced by the population after a period of pronounced hardship. They portray their subjects as figures of legendary and supernatural status. While the Ufa-Tonwoche canonizes Hitler as the god-like “creator” of “Great-Germany,” Adenauer is celebrated as a redeemer figure, the source of a “German resurrection” of biblical proportions (as the scene discussed in the introduction amply illustrates). While The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday may be free of the UfaTonwoche’s zealous fanaticism and overt celebration of militarism, it still remains on much similar terms devoted to creating an intricate

34 As stated in the introduction, due to the thematic limitations of this study, the dedicated analysis of the stylistic and personal continuities between the Third Reich newsreel system and the Deutsche Wochenschau cannot be done here besides some isolated references where this point is pertinent to my argument.

The Father of the Nation Discourse 281 connection between a political leader and the nation. In 1961, with the 85-year-old Adenauer’s resignation as Federal Chancellor clearly in sight, the film represents a tribute to the politician who had left his mark on the Federal Republic as it transitioned under his leadership from an occupied country to a successful democracy that was an integral part of Western economic and defense networks. However, the film alludes to Adenauer’s accomplishments only indirectly. The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday instead remains more focused on personal tribute than on legacy. In its celebration of the man Adenauer as “father of Germany,” however, the film represents the first step in an evolution from a tribute film towards the Federal Press Office’s legacy film projects that strive to highlight Adenauer’s lasting accomplishments for the Federal Republic at the time of his leaving office.

Preparing for Adenauer’s Leaving Office: The Legacy Projects On August 29, 1963, weeks before Adenauer’s resignation as federal chancellor on October 15, the Deutsche Wochenschau leadership contacted the new Federal Press Office director Karl-Günther von Hase with a request.35 The newsreel company sought to complete its filmic archive on Adenauer: “Throughout the postwar years, the Deutsche Wochenschau GmbH has assembled a nearly complete documentation on the work and the personality of the Federal Chancellor. It is our ambition to complete our historical documentation prior to the Federal Chancellor’s resignation.” The company asked for von Hase’s support in requesting authorization from the Chancellery to film and interview Adenauer in a number of private and official settings.36 A second letter of the same day, directed to the Federal Chancellery, included a list of short film clips on Adenauer that the Deutsche Wochenschau described as necessary “in order to [. . .] round out our film-biographical archive on the Federal Chancellor’s administration.”37 The document detailed a list of shots and visual scenarios. It also contained interview questions for Adenauer. It further stated that in 35 Von Hase had replaced the Press Office’s long-standing director Felix von Eckardt in July of 1962. 36 “Die Deutsche Wochenschau Gmbh. hat in den Nachkriegsjahren eine fast lückenlose Dokumentation über das Werk und die Persönlichkeit des Herrn Bundeskanzlers zusammengetragen. Unser Bestreben ist es, noch vor dem Rücktritt des Herrn Bundeskanzlers unsere zeitgeschichtliche Dokumentation zu vervollständigen.” Letter by Wiers and Purzer (DW) to von Hase (FPO), August 29, 1963 (DW Archive). 37 Wiers and Purzer saw these proposed scenes necessary “zur Vervollständigung unseres film-biographischen Zeitarchivs über den Herrn Bundeskanzler.” Letter by Wiers and Purzer (DW) to Schnippenkötter (Federal Chancellery), August 29, 1963 (DW Archive).

282 Staging West German Democracy order to be able to film Adenauer on short notice, Adenauer’s favorite cameraman Wilhelm Luppa would be on stand-by in Bonn during the weeks prior to the chancellor’s resignation.38 This list of shots is telling in regard to the screen image that the Deutsche Wochenschau envisioned for Adenauer, as it included numerous visual “Adenauerisms,” referencing several well-established tropes about his role as statesman, among them the following: 1. Several portrait shots of the federal chancellor, well lit, from the front, sideways in profile, at an angle from behind, cheerful and serious. The federal chancellor in the favorite corner of his home and working at his desk in the Palais Schaumburg. 2. The federal chancellor’s hand in close-up, resting and in motion, close-up of the hand signing documents, memos, or a different text. 3. The federal chancellor wandering in nature, doing some light work in the garden, leaving his home in Rhöndorf, returning to Rhöndorf. 4. The federal chancellor in everyday conversation with staff with original sound. 5. While reading a crime novel and while contemplating caricatures. 6. Photos from the chancellor’s family album. The chancellor looking at these photos. Childhood, youth, parents, siblings, college years, Cologne years. 7. The federal chancellor with his dog.39 The letter also included a list of interview questions, among them the following: 1.What influences and role models impacted your development as a human being and as a politician? [. . .] 3. Which insights and

38 Letter by Wiers and Purzer (DW) to Schnippenkötter (Federal Chancellery), August 29, 1963 (DW Archive). 39 “1. Diverse Portrait-Aufnahmen des Bundeskanzlers, gut ausgeleuchtet, frontal, seitlich, schräg von hinten, heiter und ernst. Der Bundeskanzler in der Lieblingsecke seiner Wohnung und während der Arbeit am Schreibtisch im Palais Schaumburg. 2. Die Hand des Bundeskanzlers in Großaufnahme, ruhend und in Bewegung, Großaufnahme der Hand, die Unterschriften gibt, Aktenvermerke oder einen anderen Text schreibt. 3. Der Bundeskanzler als Spaziergänger in der freien Natur, bei leichter Arbeit im Garten, beim Verlassen des Hauses in Rhöndorf, bei der Rückkehr nach Rhöndorf. 4. Der Bundeskanzler bei einem alltäglichen Gespräch mit einem Mitarbeiter im Original-Ton. 5. Beim Lesen eines Kriminalromans und bei der Betrachtung von Karikaturen. 6. Aufnahmen aus dem Familienalbum des Kanzlers. Der Kanzler beim Betrachten dieser Aufnahmen. Kindheit, Jugend, Eltern, Geschwister, Studentenzeit, Kölner Zeit. 7. Der Bundeskanzler mit seinem Hund.” Letter by Wiers and Purzer (DW) to Schnippenkötter (Federal Chancellery), August 29, 1963 (DW Archive).

The Father of the Nation Discourse 283 thoughts would you pass on to a young person for their future development? 4. In your opinion, what is the most effective way to contain the dangers of Communism? [. . .] 10. A short recollection of the Federal Chancellor in which he talks about his childhood and youth (Highlight the strong influence of religion on his life, the father’s influence, fulfilling one’s duty, mentioning of the study years in Munich, the weekly visits to the Old Pinakothek). [. . .] 12. Explanation of the most important political decision since 1949 (to win back the freedom to decide, the right to conduct one’s own foreign policy, the necessity of an orientation towards the West, European unification, the reconciliation Germany – France). 13. A short glimpse into the future, possibly a reiteration of the following statement: “We must never tire in continuing the work of 1949, for otherwise we will return to the nothing from which we rose back then.”40 This “wish-list” foreshadows the way Adenauer was to be portrayed in several projects, not all of them realized, which this book refers to as “legacy films.” By highlighting Adenauer’s political legacy as the first federal chancellor, these films were to accompany Adenauer’s retirement from the chancellorship (Ludwig Erhard (CDU) succeeded him on October 17, 1963), and his entering history. In the process, the films historicize Adenauer by consolidating for posterity the different aspects of his image, as they already existed in the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel and the earlier PR films. As the examples above suggest, many of the proposed shots and interview questions strove to shed light on “the man behind the legend” and delved into Adenauer’s hobbies, private interests, and family history. At the same time, interview

40 “1. Welche Einflüße und Leitbilder haben Ihren Werdegang als Mensch und Politiker beeinflußt? [. . .] 3. Welche Grundsätze und Gedanken würden Sie einem jungen Menschen mit auf den Weg geben? 4. Was ist Ihrer Ansicht nach das wirksamste Mittel, um den Gefahren des Kommunismus begegnen zu können? [. . .] 10. Eine kurze Erzählung des Bundeskanzlers, in der er seine Kindheit und Jugend streift. (Hinweis auf den starken Einfluß der Religion in seinem Leben, der Einfluß des Vaters, Pflichterfüllung, Erwähnung des Studiums in München, die wöchentlichen Besuche in der alten Pinakothek). [. . .] 12. Erörterung der wichtigsten politischen Entscheidung seit 1949 (Freiheit der Entscheidung zurückgewinnen, das Recht, eine eigene Außenpolitik zu treiben, die Notwendigkeit einer Anlehnung an den Westen, Vereinigung Europas, Aussöhnung Deutschland – Frankreich). 13. Ein kurzer Ausblick auf die Zukunft, vielleicht eine Wiederholung des folgenden Satzes: “Wir müssen unablässig das Werk von 1949 fortführen, sonst kehren wir in das Nichts zurück, aus dem wir uns damals erhoben haben.” Letter by Wiers and Purzer (DW) to Schnippenkötter (Federal Chancellery), August 29, 1963 (DW Archive).

284 Staging West German Democracy questions about politics, especially related to the Cold War, uncritically celebrated his political beliefs and achievements, and were to underline Adenauer’s position as a wise and highly experienced political authority. Between 1960 and 1963, the Press Office contemplated at least three such legacy film projects. As the above quotes from the shot lists and interview questions illustrate, the films were to consist largely of newly filmed segments of interviews with Adenauer and some of his political friends and opponents, and of new footage showing him during informal moments. In their planning, the Deutsche Wochenschau sought to augment this new material with archival footage from Adenauer’s pre-1949 past, and with Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel segments about his political achievements and honors during his chancellorship. The first such initiative was a project with the working title Konrad Adenauer – The Man and the Statesman (Konrad Adenauer – Mensch und Staatsmann). There is no archival evidence that the project saw completion and that the Deutsche Wochenschau became involved. The beginnings of the project go back to May of 1960, when the journalist A.W. Uhlig submitted a film synopsis to the Head of Film Kurt Betz at the Press Office.41 Uhlig’s synopsis praises Adenauer in a laudatory tone as a statesman who directs the fate of the Federal Republic on the international scale with rich experience and his trademark motto “no experiments.” With its election campaign-like rhetoric that emphasized political stability and continuity under Adenauer’s leadership, Uhlig’s film synopsis might have resonated with Betz, considering that the federal election of 1961 was around the corner: As is always the case during the critical periods of tension between East and West, and also after the failure of the Paris summit, the German federal chancellor emerges as the calm center within the accord of Western decisions. The fate of the German people will more than ever depend on the question whether competent evaluation of the communist bloc and its tactics remains at the center of German policy making.42

41 Letter by A.W. Uhlig to Betz (FPO), May 20, 1961 (BArchiv B145/1459). 42 “Wie immer in kritischen Phasen der Ost-Westspannungen erweist sich auch jetzt nach dem Scheitern der Pariser Gipfelkonferenz der deutsche Bundeskanzler als der ruhende Pol in der Flucht westlicher Entscheidungen. Mehr denn je wird das Schicksal des deutschen Volkes davon abhängen, ob die souveräne Beurteilung der kommunistischen Weltmacht und ihrer Taktiken auch weiterhin Grundlage der deutschen Politik bleibt.” Film synopsis “Konrad Adenauer – Mensch und Staatsmann,” n.d. (BArchiv B145/1459).

The Father of the Nation Discourse 285 With its declared goal of “keeping the man always at the center and letting the work of the statesman run alongside in the background,”43 Uhlig’s synopsis alludes to many aspects of the wish-list for Adenauer footage that the Deutsche Wochenschau prepared in 1963. As to the motivation for such a project, Uhlig argued “the chancellor’s advanced age, his admirable ingenuity and freshness immediately awaken public sympathy for (and curiosity about) his way of living, his daily routine and his habits.”44 Even if a personal profile of Adenauer would meet with widespread interest, as Uhlig claimed, archival evidence of any further development of the project ends at this point.45 A second legacy film project developed further, but nevertheless did not see production either. In February of 1961, and apparently without the Press Office’s support, the Deutsche Wochenschau registered a project under the title Konrad Adenauer, his Life and Works (Konrad Adenauer, sein Leben und sein Werk) at the West German FSK Film Register of Film Titles.46 After the project received press coverage, private individuals offered their assistance—sometimes in bizarre fashion. For example, an Adenauer-lookalike offered his services (pitching himself as “Adenauer II”),47 as did a Catholic nun, who offered her self-authored books on Adenauer and his family for the scriptwriting process.48 This illustrates the lively public interest in films on Adenauer at the time. As the project developed, the Deutsche Wochenschau instructed Luppa to capture some specific visual “Adenauerisms” with his camera. These were to connote private moments of a patriarchic statesman beloved by the population. Among other things, Luppa was ordered to film Adenauer giving away cigars to the ferry people during his customary ferry rides from Rhöndorf to Bonn in his trademark black Mercedes. The newsreel company also requested footage of Adenauer conversing with his gardener (“supposed to be of great visual appeal”),

43 “Entscheidend für die Atmosphäre des Film wäre, den Menschen immer im Mittelpunkt zu behalten und die staatsmännische Tätigkeit gewissermaßen als Nebenkulisse laufen zu lassen.” Film synopsis “Konrad Adenauer – Mensch und Staatsmann,” n.d. (BArchiv B145/1459). 44 “Das hohe Alter, die bewundernswerte Schaffenskraft und Frische des Kanzlers wecken von vornherein die Anteilnahme (und Neugier) an seiner Lebensweise, seinem Tagesablauf und an seinen Gewohnheiten.” Film synopsis “Konrad Adenauer – Mensch und Staatsmann,” n.d. (BArchiv B145/1459). 45 The Press Office instead decided to pursue another of Uhlig’s film concepts. In November of 1960, Uhlig successfully submitted a second outline for a documentary entitled Visiting Bonn, which actually saw production in 1960/1, with Uhlig writing and directing the film. This film is discussed in chapter six. 46 Letter by Purzer (DW) to Luppa, 17.2.1961 (DW Archive). 47 Letter by Römmelt to the DW, January 25, 1961 (DW Archive). 48 Letter by Daniela Krein to the DW, January 21, 1961 (DW Archive).

286 Staging West German Democracy and of Adenauer in his new bocce court (“with a very active Federal Chancellor”).49 The image of a healthy and vigorous chancellor was especially important to the Press Office, since by 1961, Adenauer had reached the senior age of eighty-five. The film synopsis called for the narrative to mainly rest on archival footage and newsreel clips originating from the Deutsche Wochenschau’s in-house newsreels Neue Deutsche Wochenschau and Welt im Bild. These were to be arranged along different thematic headings, such as biographic ones (“Upbringing,” “Background”), a segment concerning Adenauer’s political legacy (“The Statesman – The Politician”), and personal ones (“Humor,” “The Man”).50 The film was to praise Adenauer along the lines of a quote by his friend, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles: “Dr. Adenauer is the greatest German statesman brought forth by this century.”51 The film also was to portray Adenauer as a ”natural born civilian” in sharp contrast to Prussian and National Socialist militarism in the section entitled “Background,”52 thus demarcating a break with previous forms of German statehood. A segment entitled “Ascent – Accomplishments” was to portray Adenauer as the visionary architect of the Federal Republic’s rise to prosperity and military security. The section “Statesman – The Politician” highlights Adenauer’s many state visits to make the point that he raised the international reputation of West Germany, while the segment “Honors” was to underline Adenauer’s international prestige as statesman.53 Lastly, the section “Humor” was supposed to portray Adenauer’s “legendary humor,” and emphasize his “quick-witted answers” during political discussions.54 In July of 1962, the Deutsche Wochenschau ordered Luppa to film and record audio at one of Adenauer’s famous tea talks with

49 “Besprechungen, die der Kanzler mit seinem Gärtner führt, sollen von grossem optischen Reiz sein. Des weiteren wäre es angebracht, einige Bilder von der neuen Boccia-Bahn mit einem sehr aktiven Bundeskanzler zu zeigen.” Letter by Purzer (DW) to Luppa (DW), February 17, 1961 (DW Archive). 50 Film synopsis “Konrad Adenauer – Sein Leben und sein Werk,” n.d. (DW Archive); List “Reihenfolge Adenauer-Film,” n.d. (DW Archive). 51 “Dr. Adenauer ist der größte deutsche Staatsmann, den dieses Jahrhundert hervorgebracht hat.” Film synopsis “Konrad Adenauer – Sein Leben und sein Werk,” n.d. (DW Archive). 52 “Aufnahmen lassen ihn als den geborenen Zivilisten erkennen.” Film synopsis “Konrad Adenauer – Sein Leben und sein Werk,” n.d. (DW Archive). 53 “Film synopsis “Konrad Adenauer – Sein Leben und sein Werk,” n.d. (DW Archive). 54 “Seine Beziehung zu Karikaturen und zu dem legendären Humor, den er selbst gebildet hat. Eine Fülle von Aufnahmen (Wahl-Szenen, schlagfertige Antworten bei Rede-Duellen usw.) stehen für dieses Charakterbild zur Verfügung.” Film synopsis “Konrad Adenauer – Sein Leben und sein Werk,” n.d. (DW Archive).

The Father of the Nation Discourse 287 hand-picked, compliant journalists, “maybe on a topic previously agreed upon between the Federal Chancellor and the journalists. It is imperative during the shooting, however, that the question and answer comes across as casual and unscripted.”55 This is a prime example of how the Deutsche Wochenschau aimed to portray Adenauer as always in control of conversations with the media, as witty, and preferably as surrounded by a circle of eagerly listening journalists. Critical questions were not factored into this portrait. After a brief hiatus—the year 1961 saw a large number of Deutsche Wochenschau productions for the Federal Press Office—the Konrad Adenauer, his Life and Works project continued to develop further during the summer of 1962. In July, Luppa was ordered to research film material on Adenauer from the Weimar Republic.56 In August of that year, the Deutsche Wochenschau informed Luppa that the newsreel company had received the order for a “feature-length” film on Adenauer. This order originated from an initiative of the President of the Regional Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, Wilhelm Johnen.57 Apparently, the Deutsche Wochenschau planned to adapt the already existing synopsis to the requirements of the new project. Within several weeks, however, during which the original synopsis for Konrad Adenauer, his Life and Works had been altered according to Johnen’s wishes,58 and with a script consultant already contacted,59 work was again halted. The Federal Chancellery, which had not been involved in the Deutsche Wochenschau’s project so far, had in the meantime thrown its support behind a similar Adenauerproject by the Munich-based Insel-Film company.60 This effectively ended the Konrad Adenauer, his Life and Works project. Nevertheless, and in spite of the absence of any concrete project at the time, the Deutsche Wochenschau continued to collect material on

55 “[. . .] vielleicht über ein Thema, über das man sich vorher zusammen mit dem Bundeskanzler und den Journalisten einigt. Wesentlich bei den Aufnahmen muß aber dann sein, daß dieses Frage- und Antwortspiel zwanglos und nicht gestellt erscheint.” Letter by Purzer (DW) to Luppa (DW), July 5, 1962 (DW Archive). 56 Internal Memo by Luppa (DW) to Purzer. July 16, 1962. DW Archive. 57 Letter by the DW to Wilhelm Johnen, August 10, 1962. DW Archive. 58 Letter by the DW to Wilhelm Johnen (Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia), August 10, 1962 (DW Archive). 59 Internal Memorandum by Wiers (DW), August 11, 1962 (DW Archive). 60 Internal Memorandum by Wiers (DW), August 20, 1962 (DW Archive). This project may have taken longer to produce and ultimately might have been realized in the Insel production 90 Years of German History – 90 Years of Konrad Adenauer (90 Jahre deutscher Geschichte – 90 Jahre Konrad Adenauer) that was released in 1968 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290389/). The German film portal filmportal.de provides no clear production date (http://www.filmportal.de/film/90-jahregeschichte-90-jahre-adenauer_7c86ac428e1a427486888ba49581f1cf).

288 Staging West German Democracy Adenauer in order to be ready to produce a film that honored his achievements when the day of resignation would come. In October of 1962, the newsreel company even sent an inquiry to the Soviet Central Studio of Documentary Films as to whether Nikita Khrushchev would be available to answer interview questions about Adenauer.61 Former US President Eisenhower was to answer the question “How do you evaluate Federal Chancellor Adenauer as a person and a politician?”62 Besides such initiatives, the project to create a filmic legacy remained dormant until the time of Adenauer’s approaching resignation, when it would re-emerge as the film In the Service of the Fatherland.

In the Service of the Fatherland (1963): Adenauer’s Anticlimactic Goodbye Plans for a filmic account of Adenauer’s legacy as the Federal Republic’s first chancellor only resumed with Adenauer’s impending resignation on October 15, 1963. By then, the Press Office seemed to have abandoned its initial plans for an exquisite, all-encompassing film on Adenauer’s life and works, and settled on a small-scale and straightforward project. A Press Office memorandum of September 21, 1963 in unceremonious language specifies a 20 min b/w film on the “farewell ceremonies that will be prepared by the government, the Bundestag, the Bundesrat, Bundeswehr, Dipl. Corps, etc. for the departing federal chancellor.”63 According to the memorandum, “the film’s overall concept should be that the Federal Republic – represented here among others through the bodies of parliament, the Bundeswehr, members of the mass media, the youth, the citizens of Berlin, etc. – thank Dr. Adenauer for his historic achievement.”64 61 Letter by Wiers/Purzer (DW) to Mr. Osminin (Central Studio of Documentary Films), October 26, 1962 (DW Archive). The Deutsche Wochenschau had professional contacts to the Soviet Union’s newsreel system in order to exchange film stock. This was common procedure in the 1960s. I am indebted to Susanne Serowiecki, archival specialist of the Deutsche Wochenschau Archive Hamburg, for this information. 62 “Wie beurteilen Sie Bundeskanzler Adenauer als Mensch und als Politiker?” Internal memorandum by Purzer (DW) to Schmidt-Hansen (DW), December 12, 1961 (DW Archive). 63 The memorandum lists “Abschiedsveranstaltungen, die Regierung, Bundestag, Bundesrat, Bundeswehr, Dipl. Corps usw. für den scheidenden Bundeskanzler vorbereiten werden.” Internal memorandum by Krüger (FPO), September 21, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4671). 64 “Der Leitgedanke des Films soll sein, daß die Bundesrepublik – hier vertreten u.a. durch die parlamentarischen Körperschaften, die Bundeswehr, Vertreter der Massenmedien, Jugend, Berliner Bevölkerung usw. – Dr. Adenauer für seine historische Leistung danken.” Internal memorandum by Krüger (FPO), September 21, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4671).

The Father of the Nation Discourse 289 Similar to the project’s design as a plain document of the events, the plans for the film’s distribution were equally low key. The Press Office did not plan for a broad distribution of the film through the usual non-commercial outlets, or on television.65 There were no plans to screen the film commercially in theaters, either.66 It seems that since the Press Office had already started work on a more elaborate biography of Adenauer with the Insel-Film company in 1962, the Press Office simply wanted the Deutsche Wochenschau to create a straightforward account of Adenauer’s farewell festivities. Another reason was that Adenauer’s resignation was intensely covered by television, which by 1963 had seen increasing proliferation in West German homes and an augmentation as a market through the start of the ZDF network. These factors seemed to have severely limited the scope of In the Service of the Fatherland. Planning for the film started with a synopsis submitted to the Press Office by the journalist Rolf Vogel in mid-September of 1963.67 Among other things, the film was to report on Adenauer’s speeches during his goodbye visit to the Bundeswehr and in front of the Bundestag. Vogel also presented the idea to use Adenauer’s swearing-in ceremony as Federal Chancellor in front of the Bundestag in 1949 and his farewell speech as chancellor in the parliament as the film’s frame narrative.68 In line with the PR films’ usual argumentation, Vogel presents Adenauer as the sole initiator and guarantor of the Federal Republic’s success story. He planned to juxtapose sober images of places and “most importantly, the faces” from the year of 1949 with ones from 1963: “14 years lie in between, 14 years of policies determined by this man, which he as federal chancellor directed and for which he carried the responsibility. This man is bidding goodbye at home and abroad; a grateful nation, whose ascent he oversaw, is seeing him off.”69

65 Internal Memorandum by Krüger (FPO), September 21, 1963 (BArchiv B145/ 4671). 66 “Genehmigungsverfügung” (FPO), October 17, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4671). 67 Letter by Rolf Vogel to von Hase (FPO), September 18, 1963 (BArchiv B145/ 4671). 68 Film synopsis “Exposé für einen Dokumentarfilm über die Abschiedsfeiern für Bundeskanzler Dr. Adenauer,” September 18, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4671). 69 “14 Jahre liegen dazwischen, 14 Jahre einer Politik, die von diesem Manne geprägt wurde, die er als Bundeskanzler leitete und verantwortet hat. Dieser Mann verabschiedet sich im In- und Ausland, von ihm verabschiedet sich in Dankbarkeit das deutsche Volk, dessen Aufstieg er angeführt hat.” Film synopsis “Exposé für einen Dokumentarfilm über die Abschiedsfeiern für Bundeskanzler Dr. Adenauer,” September 18, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4671).

290 Staging West German Democracy It seems as if the planning of what would later emerge as In the Service of the Fatherland was influenced by an atmosphere of impending change and transition in the Press Office, as Adenauer’s chancellorship ended. Cautioning remarks that this film should not become a “tearful goodbye” or a declaration of the “end of the [Biblical] seven good years” under Adenauer attest to a new tone that had entered the Press Office correspondence.70 What is more, initial negotiations suggest that the project initially lacked direction, with the Press Office even suggesting to wait until after the shooting was completed and a rough cut assembled to determine the film’s final form. The cost was projected at DM 70,000 to DM 80,000. The Press Office planned to give a copy of the finished film to Adenauer as a goodbye present.71 After adopting the working title A Chancellor Takes his Leave (Ein Kanzler nimmt Abschied) for the project,72 the Deutsche Wochenschau reactivated cameraman Wilhelm Luppa in October of 1963 with the task of filming Adenauer during the three weeks of official goodbye celebrations.73 These included a large gala event at the new Beethovenhalle in Bonn with about 2,500 invited guests, a Bundeswehr parade in Lower Saxony, the inauguration of an orphanage in Bonn, and events in Adenauer’s honor organized by the CDU/CSU. Set in a number of different contexts all across the Federal Republic, however, these celebrations resulted in isolated and unrelated footage with regard to setting and visual quality. As the work on the assembly of a rough cut began, this quickly became a widely recognized problem. By early November of 1963, Deutsche Wochenschau director Heinz Wiers and Betz had sifted through some 9,000 meters of raw footage together and had reached a sobering conclusion. An internal Press Office memorandum claims that “from this abundance of material, no larger and coherent film can be made. The individual scenes are too different from each other regarding the sequence of events and atmosphere.”74 To complicate matters further, Adenauer’s health proved to be a problem as well. Apparently, the 87-year-old chancellor frequently came across as exhausted in the footage. The memorandum

70 Handwritten comment by Bruno Six (FPO). Internal memorandum by Betz (FPO), September 23, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4671). 71 Internal memorandum by Betz (FPO), September 23, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4671). 72 Letter by Wiers and Beyer (DW) to Betz (FPO), October 2, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4671). 73 Film shooting reports by Luppa (DW), October 7–15, 1963 (DW Archive). 74 The Press Office argued “[. . .] daß sich aus dieser Fülle des Materials ein einheitlicher größerer Film nicht machen läßt. Die einzelnen Szenen sind im Ablauf sowohl wie in ihrer Stimmung zu unterschiedlich.” Internal memorandum by Bruno Six (FPO), November 5, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4671).

The Father of the Nation Discourse 291 details that Adenauer seemed “inconsistent” and made several mistakes during his speeches. He confused place names and used the discredited term “Wehrmacht” for the new Bundeswehr, a highly inconvenient gaffe.75 After much deliberation, Wiers and Betz decided together to adopt Vogel’s suggestion from the synopsis that the Bundestag session in honor of Adenauer’s resignation on October 15, 1963, in particular Bundestag President Eugen Gerstenmaier’s laudation, would serve as the film’s narrative frame, into which scenes from different events in Adenauer’s honor would be inserted. This was to compensate for the lack of consistency in between the different covered events. The title would be In the Service of the Fatherland, a quote from Gerstenmaier’s speech.76 With the key decisions now taken, the Deutsche Wochenschau produced the film very quickly throughout November 1963. While the Press Office swiftly authorized the cut, Betz himself spent the better part of November editing and writing the commentary.77 By December 1963, the film was finished, with 100 16mm copies distributed through non-commercial channels to the usual recipients, such as the CDU’s PR outlet Mobilwerbung and the Landesfilmdienste.78 In December of 1963, the Press Office declared that it intended to employ the film “in the context of contemporary political information.”79 The 28 min b/w film opens with a close-up of Adenauer’s profile stenciled into a medal (a different one from the aureus magnus in The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday) under the opening credits, set to the festive sounds of Schubert’s Symphony No. 9. This immediately portrays Adenauer as a statesman of historic proportions. A dissolve transition on a medium shot of Adenauer standing at his seat during the Bundestag session in his honor introduces the frame narrative of the film. Bundestag President Gerstenmaier’s remark that “[. . .] this chamber with all its constituents is so much under the impression of the

75 “Auch Dr. Adenauer selbst präsentiert sich in keiner Weise gleichbleibend (teilweise müde, teilweise sogar grammatische und sachliche Fehler, z.B. ‚Wunstett’ statt ‚Wunstorf’, ‚Wehrmacht’ statt ‚Bundeswehr.’” Internal memorandum by Bruno Six (FPO), November 5, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4671). 76 Internal memorandum by Bruno Six (FPO), November 5, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4671). 77 Internal memorandum by Betz (FPO), November 26, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4671). 78 “Zusammenstellung über die Verteilung der Kopien Format 16mm zu dem Film‚ . . . ums Vaterland verdient gemacht’ ” (Dt. Reportagefilm), December 18, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4671). 79 “Im Rahmen der aktuellen politischen Information[. . .]” “Genehmigungsverfügung,” (FPO), December 6, 1963 (BArchiv B145/4671).

292 Staging West German Democracy extraordinary and important events happening today that no one objected to this session” (1:21),80 creates the impression of unanimous admiration and respect for Adenauer in the West German parliament. Deviating from Vogel’s initial synopsis and in keeping with the Press Office’s frugal outlook on the film, the narrative forgoes longer historical references to the individual waypoints of Adenauer’s political successes and achievements. Instead, it concentrates on how the different farewell events for Adenauer honor the chancellor’s achievements, which the film presupposes as common knowledge in 1963. The film therefore shows Adenauer during events that directly or indirectly evoke these successes, such as a Bundeswehr parade in his honor (highlighting the Federal Republic’s successful integration into NATO in 1955), or delineating the fundamentals of his foreign policy to a circle of international journalists (underlining the Federal Republic’s diplomatic connections and international prestige). The second important strand of the film’s narrative concerns glimpses into Adenauer’s “private” life, which in 1963 had already become a long-established part of the chancellor’s screen image. The film features scenes from his vacationing spot in Cadenabbia, Italy (5:33), scenes of Adenauer looking at caricatures (4:32), and scenes that emphasize Adenauer’s image as father of the nation in symbolic terms, like one of him inaugurating a new orphanage in Bonn (8:42). Through the deliberate intermingling of Adenauer’s political and ostensibly “private” functions, the image of the pater patriae emerges.81 The first narrative insert from the Bundestag session-frame, a cut to Adenauer’s last session with his cabinet, immediately establishes an air of continuity about Adenauer’s politics through the prominent position in which Adenauer’s successor, Ludwig Erhard is portrayed. The commentary highlights Erhard’s integral function in the Federal Republic’s founding years as Minister of Economics: “He initiated the economic ascent of Germany and to this day continues to safeguard the stability of that ascent” (2:44).82 Underlining the continuity of Adenauer’s politics seemed to have been a prime objective of the film: handwritten comments on an early list of scenes for the film call for

80 “Dieses Haus steht mit allen seinen Teilen so sehr unter dem Eindruck des Außergewöhnlichen und Bedeutsamen, das sich heute ereignet, dass es niemand gab, der dieser Sitzung widersprochen hat.” In the Service of the Fatherland, Deutsche Wochenschau 1963, 1:21. 81 Schwarz, Wochenschau, 359. 82 “Er hat den wirtschaftlichen Aufstieg Deutschlands eingeleitet und sich bis zum heutigen Tage um die Stabilität dieses Aufstiegs bemüht.” In the Service of the Fatherland 2:44.

The Father of the Nation Discourse 293 several extra shots of Erhard to be inserted—apparently to incorporate an air of continuity into the film.83 Over medium shots of Adenauer and Erhard seated together at the conference table during the cabinet meeting, the commentary briefly sketches out the way stations along the Federal Republic’s path from an occupied country to a NATO and EEC member under Adenauer’s lead: “The path led from the Statue of Occupation to sovereignty. It brought freedom and social security. It made Germany an equal partner of the free world” (2:57).84 The images show Adenauer light-hearted and in good humor, while Erhard comes across as tense, conveying to the audience a sense of the weight of responsibility now on his shoulders (3:03). At the same time, Adenauer’s relaxed demeanor suggests that with Erhard, the Federal Republic’s future rests in experienced hands. The film’s following sequence firmly connects the name Adenauer, in all of its political and personal associations, with the CDU and CSU parties. In a sequence depicting a reception for the CDU/CSU faction hosted by Adenauer, he emerges as the clear center of attention, laughing, energetic, and generally in good spirits. The commentary accompanying the images of party members mingling around Adenauer emphasizes, above all, continuity: “the basics of the last 14 year’s policy took shape among the circle of these men and women. From this sphere emerged the staff that assisted him in all difficult decisions. Dr. Adenauer will now pledge his help in word and deed to the new Federal Chancellor as a Bundestag representative” (3:43).85 This is an assurance that there will be no power vacuum after Adenauer’s resignation. Adenauer may have stepped down as chancellor, but the commentary emphasizes that Adenauer will continue to exert his political influence. These “men and women,” as suggested by the images and commentary, will faithfully carry on Adenauer’s political legacy, even with Erhard at the helm. A sequence devoted to Adenauer’s character traits augments the previous one on Adenauer’s political experience. It dissolve-transitions from the images of the CDU/CSU reception to a portrait of the

83 List “Schnittfolge: Sonderfilm K112 ‘Der Abschied des Bundeskanzlers,’ n.d. (DW Archive). 84 “Der Weg führte vom Besatzungsstatut zur Souveränität. Er brachte Freiheit und soziale Sicherheit. Er machte Deutschland zum gleichberechtigten Partner der freien Welt.” In the Service of the Fatherland, 2:57. 85 “Im Kreise dieser Männer und Frauen formten sich die Grundzüge der Politik der vergangenen 14 Jahre. Aus diesem Kreise gingen die Mitarbeiter hervor, die bei allen schweren Entscheidungen seine [Adenauer’s] Ratgeber waren. Dr. Adenauer wird nun als Abgeordneter dem neuen Bundeskanzler mit Rat und Tat zur Verfügung stehen.” In the Service of the Fatherland, 3:43.

294 Staging West German Democracy chancellor painted by Ernst Gunter Hansing. As in the opening with the medal, such sequences, which either transition from or to an artistically rendered image of Adenauer, in effect “historicize” the chancellor. Hansing’s portrait highlights Adenauer’s aged face. Adenauer’s features, with their lines and wrinkles speaking of a long life, serves as the visual background to the commentary’s emphasis of his rich personal and political experience, his Christian values, and his tenacity as a politician to “pursue the way he once recognized as right” (4:07).”86 A scene that was on the Deutsche Wochenschau’s wish-list of August 1963, featuring Adenauer looking at caricatures of himself, introduces the film’s narrative strand on the casual and “private” aspects of Adenauer’s personality. This scene is obviously staged, and Adenauer willingly poses for the camera in a frontal medium close-up showing him looking at a caricature book (4:45).87 This scene features Adenauer’s smiling face crosscut with one of the caricatures from the book and thereby alludes to his well-known sense of humor and his Rhenish wit that, according to the commentary, Adenauer “radiated at all times” (4:44).88 Adenauer’s wit was an important “Adenauerism,” a filmic trope that was equally constitutive to the chancellor’s image in the PR films as his Catholic faith, his interest in Christian devotional art, or the black Mercedes. Together with a short scene on another such “Adenauerism,” Adenauer playing bocce at his vacation home, the Villa Collina in Cadenabbia, Italy (4:57), this section alludes to aspects of Adenauer’s life that were marketed as “private” to the audience but were in fact well-calculated in their appeal of commenting on Adenauer’s official function as chancellor. When In the Service of the Fatherland was released in 1963, the images from Cadenabbia, where Adenauer had spent his vacations since 1957, were already well known through the yearly vacation sequences in the regular Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreels.89 On the one hand, by showing Adenauer wearing sunglasses and joking with his entourage, they provided an opportunity to show

86 “Trotz vieler Enttäuschungen ist Konrad Adenauer den Weg gegangen, den er einmal als richtig erkannt hatte.” In the Service of the Fatherland, 4:07. 87 The book was entitled Konrad are you going to stay home now? Adenauer in caricature: Walther Freisburger, Konrad, bleibst du jetzt zu Haus? Adenauer in der Karikatur (Oldenburg: G. Stalling, 1963). It was published at the time of Adenauer’s resignation. 88 “Vielleicht lockte sie auch der Humor, den dieser Mann zu allen Zeiten selbst ausstrahlte.” In the Service of the Fatherland, 4:44. 89 In 1960, the Press Office also produced a PR film specifically on Adenauer’s vacations in Cadenabbia, a 12 min b/w film entitled Holidays without a Vacation (Ferien ohne Urlaub) through the privately-owned IFAG company.

The Father of the Nation Discourse 295 the father of the nation in a more relaxed and casual manner. On the other, such images of bocce matches with his family and aides underlined Adenauer’s ongoing vitality and energy. Especially during the later Adenauer years, this was an important PR objective. The following scene of the Italy-sequence builds on the image of a fit and energetic Federal Chancellor to underline that even on holiday, Adenauer always remains on duty for Germany. A close-up reveals Adenauer studying documents and signing papers (5:01), with the commentary emphasizing that world politics continue to occupy him even on vacation. An extreme close-up of Adenauer’s hand (also on the Deutsche Wochenschau’s “wish-list” of August 1963), pensively positioned on his forehead and holding a pen, further emphasizes his sense of responsibility and dedication to the chancellorship (5:03). The scene then transitions into a medium shot of Adenauer seated at a table in the garden of his vacation residence and addressing the audience directly. In this scene, Adenauer refers to his stay in Cadenabbia as a “so-called vacation” (5:09), and through a reference to the “entire

Figure 7.4 Detail shot of Adenauer’s forehead while working during his summer vacation in Cadenabbia, Italy. In the Service of the Fatherland (Um das Vaterland verdient gemacht, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1963). German Federal Archive.

296 Staging West German Democracy restlessness of our time” (5:13), emphasizes that he remained always on call due to the Cold War political situation.90 The Italy-sequence effectively melds two sides of Adenauer’s screen persona: the seasoned statesman and the vacationing patriarch. As a result, an image of a father figure emerges from the Italy-sequence that offers both a sense of humorous affection and protection. A central scene of the film shows Adenauer together with Erhard during an event hosted for journalists. Quite contrary to Adenauer’s relationship to the press from which he expected compliance first and foremost, the commentary describes Adenauer as an advocate of a modern media democracy by quoting him: “the Federal Republic is not only contingent upon control through parliament, but also through public opinion” (9:00).91 The commentary continues that Adenauer had “always felt comfortable” among journalists and “often stood right among them, engaged in discussion.”92 This contradicts Adenauer’s well-documented disdain for criticism by the press and his preference to surround himself with subservient ministers who would not be overly critical towards their leader.93 This stance is reflected in a scene on a farewell reception for the foreign press, which shows Adenauer surrounded by foreign correspondents. The scene casts these journalists as compliant by showing them listening eagerly and leaning down towards the seated chancellor who, according to the commentary, makes an important argument about his foreign policy (9:46). Quite contrary to Adenauer’s expectations of a compliant West German media, the pressreception sequence suggests that the Federal Republic under Adenauer was a media democracy, in which the head of government regularly engaged in debate with a critical press. After the “character study” on Adenauer in the film’s first part, the second half is largely determined by two longer scenes that, in the form of examples from the West German sociopolitical reality of 1963, highlight the real-world impact of Adenauer’s policies: a Bundeswehr parade in Adenauer’s honor (which underlines the success of his policy of Western integration), and his farewell visit as Federal Chancellor to

90 “Es zeigte sich auch hier in diesem sogenannten Urlaub die ganze Unruhe unserer Zeit.“ In the Service of the Fatherland, 5:15 91 “Die Bundesregierung bedarf nicht nur der Kontrolle durch das Parlament, sondern auch der Kontrolle durch die öffentliche Meinung.” In the Service of the Fatherland, 9:00. 92 “Trotz all der Kritik hat er sich in den Kreisen der Journalisten immer wohl gefühlt. So wie an diesem Abschiedsabend hat er oft mitten unter ihnen gestanden und mit ihnen diskutiert.” In the Service of the Fatherland, 9:12. 93 Cf. Kurt Sontheimer, Die Adenauer-Ära: Grundlegung der Bundesrepublik (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1991), 122.

The Father of the Nation Discourse 297 West Berlin (underlining Adenauer’s tenacity as Cold Warrior alongside the United States as military ally). The first scene opens with a close-up of the NATO flag, which transitions into a long shot of Adenauer mounting the stairs to a speaker’s podium carrying a very large West German flag, with flags of NATO nations flying in the background (11:12). Together with a later, two-minute-long scene featuring a military parade, this imagery on visual terms integrates the Federal Republic into the framework of the Western alliance. A short clip of Adenauer’s address reinforces this impression, for it contains a rhetorical phrase that connects him personally to the ostensible benefits of West German remilitarization: “I am taking my leave from the Bundeswehr as the most visible expression of the reconstruction of Germany, as the reintroduction of order, as proof of the integration into the front of free nations for the protection of our fatherland” (11:38).94 Firstly, this creates the impression that as the architect of the West German NATO membership Adenauer is now leaving his life work behind for the next generation. Secondly, Adenauer positively connotes the West German army with civilizational values of order and reconstruction. Through Adenauer’s political experience and foresight, the editing suggests, the Federal Republic obtained a successful military to safeguard the country’s path of stability and prosperity. Apart from extolling the Bundeswehr as the “most visible” sign of the Federal Republic’s path into the fold of Western nations, the film offers a second example of the real-world implications of Adenauer’s policies by reporting on Adenauer’s farewell visit to West Berlin on October 9 and 10, 1963. By fall of 1963, the divided city had become the “Cold War capital” through the Berlin Crisis of 1958, the building of the Wall in August of 1961, the US–Soviet confrontation with tanks at Checkpoint Charlie in October of 1962, and the visit of US President Kennedy in August of 1963. The 4.5-minute-long sequence on Adenauer’s visit to the city, which by way of the Four Powers Agreement did not belong to the Federal Republic, portrays him as a passionate fighter for German unity. This topic figures prominently during the rest of the film and is described as the integral element of Adenauer’s political legacy. The topic of German reunification is a prime example of the PR films’ function of managing conflicting desires in relation to the Federal

94 “Ich verabschiede mich von der Bundeswehr als dem sichtbarsten Ausdruck des Wiederaufbaus Deutschlands, als Wiederherstellung der Ordnung, als Beweis der Eingliederung in die Front freier Völker zum Schutze unseres Vaterlandes.” In the Service of the Fatherland, 11:38.

298 Staging West German Democracy Republic’s path under Adenauer’s political leadership. Adenauer prioritized the Federal Republic’s firm integration into Western defense and economic networks at the price of perpetuating the country’s division. Therefore, the film spends a considerable amount of its narrative to explain Adenauer’s stance and to underline his desire to reunify Germany, albeit on his terms. Still on the airfield in West Berlin, the film shows him expressing the wish that the city will soon be reunited: I am coming to the Berliners, entirely officially, because it was so close to my heart to bid a farewell to this city, which belongs to us and will always continue to do so. A farewell, which does not signify an end, but a mere waypoint on a path. On the path of Berlin, which, God willing, will be again connected to us in a time not too far away, as the capital of a united Germany (16:13).95 Again, just like during the Bundeswehr-ceremony, Adenauer carefully intermingles his own personal path with the one of Berlin, the symbolic nerve center of the postwar “German question.” This underlines his personal role in these events. While in West Berlin, Adenauer’s desire for reunification is mentioned on two further occasions, over images of him arriving at the Schöneberg Rathaus (17:46), and during a scene of him accepting the honorary citizenship of the city (18:22). The Berlin segment in general betrays an effort to recycle visual and rhetorical tropes that had become iconic through Kennedy’s visit to West Berlin in August of 1963 and the PR film The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy of that same year. In its efforts to establish Adenauer as a champion of both West Berlin’s freedom and German unity, the film’s Berlin segment is a testimony to the Press Office’s efforts at containing the ostensible contradictions within Adenauer’s policy of Western integration. The film closes with a longer scene of Adenauer delivering a speech during the CDU’s official farewell event for him on October 12, 1963, a celebration that was programmatically entitled “Germany thanks Adenauer” (“Deutschland dankt Adenauer”). This scene essentially pronounces him the father of modern Germany. It also suggests that even if Adenauer may now resign, his political vision, his presence and political legacy will continue to inform every aspect of the CDU’s

95 “Ich komme zu den Berlinern, ganz offiziell, weil es mir so sehr am Herzen lag, dieser Stadt, die zu uns gehört und immer gehören wird, einen Abschiedsgruß zu sagen. Einen Abschiedsgruß, der kein Ende bedeutet, der nur eine Station in einem Wege bedeutet. In dem Wege Berlins, das wills Gott, schon in gar nicht so ferner Zeit wieder mit uns verbunden ist als die Hauptstadt des geeinten Deutschlands.” In the Service of the Fatherland, 16:13.

The Father of the Nation Discourse 299

Figure 7.5 Adenauer and Germany, visually equated. In the Service of the Fatherland. German Federal Archive. future policies. The commentary quotes from the laudation of CDU deputy chairman von Hassel, which renders Adenauer as a political visionary: “Already in 1922, Dr. Adenauer had called for cooperation among the Christian denominations. Unfortunately, this call was ignored. What would Germany have been spared, what would the world have been spared if this call had been followed” (19:57).96 The film’s use of von Hassel’s statement suggests that a firm coalition of Christian politicians led by Adenauer would have prevented the rise of Hitler and the events of the Second World War and the Holocaust. The film presents this grossly exaggerated statement over a medium shot of Adenauer waving to the audience from the event stage. The large lettering “Deutschland” from the event’s motto clearly visible behind him evokes an impression of Adenauer as metonymic

96 “Dr. Adenauer habe bereits 1922 zur Zusammenarbeit der christlichen Konfessionen aufgerufen. Dieser Ruf sei damals leider verhallt. Was wäre Deutschland, was wäre der Welt erspart geblieben, wäre dieser Ruf gehört und befolgt worden.” In the Service of the Fatherland, 19:57.

300 Staging West German Democracy representative of Germany (19:39). This scene posits Adenauer as a towering figure of almost superhuman foresight and political vision, whose wisdom, twenty-seven years after his invocation, had finally been heard when he was elected Federal Chancellor. After thus establishing Adenauer’s status as “political prophet,” the film shows the parting chancellor giving a speech the commentary characterizes as his “political legacy.” In passionate tones, directed at the CDU’s next political generation and his successor Erhard in the auditorium, and by extension to the film’s audience, Adenauer highlights the struggle against Communism as the most important political goal for the future (20:15). The film’s rendition of the speech portrays Adenauer as Germany’s wise patriarch, who seeks to bestow upon his country his invaluable insights from an extraordinarily long life in politics. Accordingly, the film shows him lecturing his audience (and Erhard) from a position of undisputed authority about the value of tenacity in politics: “Not always back and forth, but to continue to underline and pursue that what one recognized as right” (21:05).97 With the narrative inserts now complete, the film returns to its original frame, Bundestag President Gerstenmaier’s laudation during the Bundestag session in Adenauer’s honor on October 15, 1963. After stressing that Adenauer had personally worked to gain and nourish sympathy for Germany throughout the world after 1945, Gerstenmaier mentions that Adenauer will not leave the Bundestag, but will remain in the parliament as the Elder of the House. This stresses the aspect of continuity and suggests that in spite of his resignation as chancellor, the era Adenauer is not entirely over yet: Adenauer, the audience learns, will remain a presence in German politics. A long shot of the representatives rising from their seats in Adenauer’s honor creates the impression of unanimous respect and admiration, and on visual terms downplays the different opinions on Adenauer’s policies in the parliament (27:16). This impression is further emphasized by a second long shot of the CDU/ CSU representatives applauding Gerstenmaier’s final words of the laudation: “Konrad Adenauer devoted his service to the fatherland” (27:30).98 The film then visually encapsulates the end of Adenauer’s chancellorship by presenting a long shot of Adenauer leaving the government bench and walking to his new seat in the Bundestag plenary. In line with what was ultimately envisioned by the Federal Press Office for the film, In the Service of the Fatherland is not a sentimental

97 “Nicht immer hin und her, sondern das, was man als richtig erkannt hat, immer weiter betonen und verfolgen.” In the Service of the Fatherland, 21:05. 98 “Konrad Adenauer hat sich um das Vaterland verdient gemacht.” In the Service of the Fatherland, 27:30.

The Father of the Nation Discourse 301 goodbye to a much-loved pater patriae. Also, apart from the occasional hyperbole, the film’s PR aspect remains comparatively subtle. It largely arises not from the film’s commentary, but rather from the staging of Adenauer’s persona and speech excerpts. These develop their persuasive effect from the position of a political legend that he had in the meantime achieved in West German public life and in the Western world: by the end of his chancellorship, Adenauer had evolved into a symbolic representative of the new Germany as embodied by the Federal Republic. Ultimately, the film creates an amalgam of the political and “private” man Adenauer that it juxtaposes with his political achievements. In spite of the raw material’s limitations that the Press Office complained about, the finished film still delivers what seems to be its most salient message, that Adenauer’s political spirit will live on beyond his chancellorship and even his lifetime, and that his political credo of “no experiments” will continue to determine the CDU’s policies.

Conclusion: Staging Personal Tribute and Political Legacy on Film Both The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday and In the Service of the Fatherland display a concerted effort between the Federal Press Office and the Deutsche Wochenschau to portray Adenauer as a statesman of historic proportions. This is mainly achieved through the two films’ unique constructions of his image as father of the nation. Adenauer serves as West Germany’s sole political figurehead in the films, inviting abroad and reflecting at home an unconditional confidence in a country that was thoroughly reformed and reconstructed under his leadership after the Second World War, both materially and sociopolitically. The respect and admiration for Adenauer reflected by both films clearly transcend the confines of affection and esteem usually bestowed upon an elected head of government and suggest affective identification with a revered, patriarchal, leader-figure. The films’ at times grotesque exaggerations can be explained by Adenauer’s unique position in the West German political process as the country’s first federal chancellor who presided over the young state’s key political milestones. A “projection screen” for West German ambitions and anxieties,99 Adenauer emerges from these films as a steady and unwavering signifier of a West German identity still under construction and in transition during the political turmoil of the early Cold War period. Adenauer’s attributes of experience, tenacity, wit, and public adoration as the father of modern Germany in the PR films

99 Schwarz, Wochenschauen, 352–3, 360. Please see chapter one for details.

302 Staging West German Democracy recombine old-established, and only insufficiently decontaminated German traditions of obedience to patriarchal authority, which puts the films uncomfortably close to similar declarations of reverence for masculine leadership during the Third Reich. In inviting affective identification with the policies of a strong leader, and in their entirely uncritical reverence for Adenauer, the films seem closer to the Third Reich and Kaiserreich periods in spirit than to the Federal Republic of the present day, where politicians’ birthdays no longer call for an act of state. At the same time, the contemporary yearning for a “strong,” white, masculine, and patriarchal leadership in Western democracies suggest that the ideas and visual tropes conveyed in these PR films might not have fallen entirely out of favor yet. In spite of these reservations, the films do create new meaning out of the tribute film genre for the West German postwar present: as a reinvented nation that has cut the most obvious ties with the Third Reich past, the Federal Republic under Adenauer’s leadership is portrayed as on its way to even greater economic and political stability, military security, and material affluence.

Conclusion Staging West German Democracy Through PR Films

This study has looked at the ways in which a series of governmentcommissioned PR films depicted the newly founded Federal Republic as a successful democratic state, firmly integrated into Western economic and military alliances, and under the experienced leadership of its first federal chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. The analysis of the films’ production path has shown that the films’ buyer, the Federal Press Office, harnessed the expertise of the government-controlled newsreel company Deutsche Wochenschau to obtain politically compliant and celebratory coverage of Adenauer, his politics, and the provisional capital Bonn. Due to the Press Office’s stringent control of the films’ production, the films present their audiences with a government-sanctioned version of the Federal Republic’s postwar democratic identity. Through their specific production and distribution path, the PR films provided the Adenauer administration with the “government channel” in West Germany’s democratic media landscape that it otherwise was unable to obtain: the PR films allowed the Adenauer administration to explain policy, foster consensus, and present its vision for the emerging West German nation. Due to its intricate connections to the Adenauer administration’s Press Office and its extensive PR channels, the state-controlled Deutsche Wochenschau emerges as a crucial ally in this endeavor. As producer of the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel that presented a government perspective on domestic and foreign policy, the company had considerable production experience, capacities in personnel, and access to a vast archive of newsreel footage of Adenauer’s state visits and diplomatic events in Bonn. This footage could readily be used by the government to produce PR films through a reliable production path with clearly-defined hierarchies. The Deutsche Wochenschau’s staff of experienced industry professionals translated the Adenauer administration’s complex PR needs into films that invited all Germans to identify with the German postwar democracy and its political course of Western integration.

303

304 Staging West German Democracy The PR films emerge as filmic responses to particular challenges that lay at the heart of the West German nation-building processes. Chapters three to seven have examined particular filmic discourse patterns that respond to challenges the Adenauer administration faced while establishing, explaining, and defending the Federal Republic against criticism as a separate, Western-oriented German state. These chapters have illustrated how a film’s editing creates a focused PR narrative about a particular topic by using relevant symbols and commentary. The resulting PR messages reflect some of the Bonn Republic’s key principles in foreign policy and self-representation: stability in the relationship to the US (chapter three); a firm Cold War stance against the Soviet Union (chapter four); reconciliation with France (chapter five); West Germany’s intrinsic connectedness within the economic, military, and political West through an efficient yet provisional capital (chapter six); and Adenauer’s status and political legacy of a beloved “father of the nation” (chapter seven). In their thematic foci, the PR films all define the Federal Republic’s identity as a viable entity: an enduring new German nation state vis-à-vis the Nazi past and the German Democratic Republic. The critical survey of the PR films presented in the preceding pages makes clear that these discourses cannot be limited to the group of films in which they are analyzed. On the contrary, there is considerable overlap between chapters concerning the Cold Warrior discourse for example: Adenauer is as much represented as an ardent Cold Warrior in 1959’s Visit of Trust, as he is in 1956’s Meeting in the Kremlin. The chapters are therefore to be understood as case studies, the findings and methodologies of which apply to all films. By considering them as a coherent body of films independent from the Deutsche Wochenschau’s regular newsreels output, the PR films emerge as an integral part of the Federal Press Office’s PR activities that has heretofore been largely overlooked by the scholarship. At the same time, precise audience numbers for the PR films are largely missing, apart from where noted in the preceding chapters. There is no archival evidence that the films’ overall audience numbers were systematically tracked by the Press Office or the Deutsche Wochenschau. This makes quantitative assessments of the PR films’ overall audience impact impossible and invariably focuses the impact of this study on the PR films’ contemporary value as a source on the Federal Republic’s nation-building process from the perspective of the Adenauer administration’s media policies.1

1

Further research could try to balance out the lost information on attendance numbers by an audience-response study. Louise Anderson’s 2011 dissertation on “newsreel memory as a distinctive type of popular cultural memory,” which uses focus group interviews, suggests that this approach could successfully be

Conclusion 305 More specifically, the analyses presented in this book shed light on the construction of a government-sanctioned democratic imaginary. By documenting the producers’ navigating and translating into film the challenges, contradictions, and aspirations intrinsic to the West German nation-building process, this study documents the production of a body of films that serve as “idealized projections” of the West German nation at different stages in the nation-building process.2 As the Federal Republic’s “filmic calling cards,” the PR films illustrate what the Adenauer administration wanted to highlight about the Federal Republic. In many cases, the analysis of the correspondence between the Press Office and the Deutsche Wochenschau also answers the question why that aspect or topic was of particular importance to the government. The PR films emerge from this study as precisely-tailored PR tools to support the project of establishing the Bonn Republic on the German Cold War frontlines. This required the Federal Republic’s positioning vis-à-vis two major challenges. First, the analyses in this study suggest that the PR films actively engaged the contradictions West German citizens experienced in their postwar national identity with regard to the Cold War present and the Third Reich past. Second, while rejecting the East German political regime, they express compassion with the ordinary East Germans and argue for a German reunification in principle. At the same time, they make a powerful case for Adenauer’s policy of Western integration as a necessary precondition for eventual unification: several films show Adenauer affirm his desire for reunification on these terms, often explicitly supported by US Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. In addition, in showcasing the successes of the West German parliamentary democracy in terms of the “dividends of democracy,” prosperity and security, the PR films invite all Germans, with their very different experiences, cultures, and political convictions, to participate in the new state. The films’ all-inclusiveness rests on their evasive stance towards the Third Reich past. In this regard, they implicitly invite ex-Nazis to take part in the new state once they paid at least lip service to the new democracy: unlike the Allied re-education films, the PR films did not try to indoctrinate or convert West Germans into democrats. Instead, the PR films limit themselves to showcasing the benefits of the democratic system accessible to all Germans, regardless of their past. In this aspect, they reflect the early Federal Republic’s

adapted to the German context. Louise Anderson, “Else-Where and Else-When: the Formation of Newsreel Memory as a Distinctive Type of Popular Cultural Memory” (PhD diss., Newcastle University, 2011). 2

Kiley Guyton, “Lúcia Murat’s Brave New Land as an Anti-Foundational Fiction.”

306 Staging West German Democracy problematic politics of the past (Vergangenheitspolitik), which aimed to put an end to “Nazi-sniffing,”3 as Adenauer had once dismissively called it. Consequently, the PR films do not foreground an ethical or political conversion of the social subject, but they instead advertise the Federal Republic’s material affluence, military security, and international prestige. By relentlessly reiterating these ostensible “successes of the West German democracy,” all PR films ultimately made the same argument: democracy is a system that benefits everyone in the Federal Republic. The preceding chapters have identified several key characteristics common to the PR films’ narratives of success. First, instead of engaging with political detail, the PR films focus on the visual spectacle of political and diplomatic protocol, and on reporting commonly accessible stories behind political events. To achieve that aim, the PR films package political decisions and complexities in terms of results displayed in headlines and memorable images. The films on the Franco-German rapprochement exemplify this technique in that they never refer to legal aspects of the Franco-German reconciliation or details of the negotiations. Instead they reduce and condense the diplomacy between Paris and Bonn into the staging of symbolic acts of reconciliation. Their focus is on political outcomes represented in symbolic imagery. Second, the PR films also fulfill a crucial role in manipulating and overwriting collective memory in order to manage ongoing conflicts or lingering, national traumata. The fact that a considerable number of PR films feature crucial German First and Second World War-related memory spaces reflects an effort to resolve disparities in current memories with those from the recent past. This particularly applies to the image of the former Second World War Allies against Germany. With regard to the Soviet Union and the long-lingering question of the fate of the German POWs, the 1956 PR film Meeting in the Kremlin uses the complex symbolic language of Adenauer’s “return of the hero-father” to provide closure to the traumatic German experience of war against the Red Army. Conveniently, in the context of the anti-Communism of the Adenauer period, this language at the same time reinforces the impression of the Soviet Union as the old Third Reich and present Cold War enemy. Regarding the former Western Allies against the Third Reich, the films emphasize the protection, friendship, and explicit encouragement of the United States and France. Bridging the contradiction in German collective memory of Second World War enemies as postwar allies emerges as a central strategy observed in all the films about Western state visits. These PR films therefore abound with symbolisms suggesting a rewriting of

3

Albrecht-Heider, “Deutsche Diplomaten.”

Conclusion 307 former enemies as new NATO partners, or as partners of an emerging and peaceful European cooperation. In this regard, the PR films emerge as highly relevant documents of a politics of memory that shaped the Federal Republic beyond the Adenauer period, throughout the long postwar period from 1945 to 19894 and beyond. Efforts to “overwrite” past enmities can for example be detected in Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand’s symbolic holding of hands during their 1984 meeting at Verdun. Ronald Reagan’s 1985 controversial visit to the Bitburg cemetery, where SS-soldiers lay interred among regular Wehrmacht soldiers, is another example of such a deliberate “overwriting” of collective memory of war with gestures of reconciliation. That Angela Merkel and François Hollande in 2012 repeated (and restaged) the symbolism of Adenauer’s and de Gaulle’s 1962 meeting in Reims Cathedral portrayed in Two Nations Reconcile underlines the ongoing importance of such symbolisms in the present of the Berlin Republic. A third constitutive element lies in the PR films’ direct appeal to new national founding myths. As in Meeting in the Kremlin, a symbolic invocation of the West German founding myth of a “community of victims” was central to this process.5 In contrast, the PR films on Bonn have been shown to be heavily invested in the creation of a new founding myth of a peaceful new Germany. The examination of the Bonn films in chapter six reveals that this mainly connoted the values of modesty, efficiency, and peaceful cooperation. The PR films on Bonn showcase the ostensible completion of Adenauer’s policy of Western integration by highlighting a reinvented Germany, cleansed of associations with Third Reich and Prussian militarism connoted by the former Reich capital Berlin. Central to this new founding myth is the federal symbolism of the Rhineland, with a modest and efficient capital looking westward from the left side of the Rhine, thus on symbolic terms fully embracing its economic and military ties with the US and France. A fourth common characteristic about the PR films’ narratives of success, and a central aspect of the new and positive founding myths encoded in them, is the screen image the Deutsche Wochenschau developed for Konrad Adenauer. The preceding chapters reveal the Federal Press Office’s intricate involvement, together with Adenauer’s complicity, in this process. Central to Adenauer’s image in the PR films is his staging as an integrative father figure for the West German nation.

4 5

I am referring to Tony Judt’s conception of the postwar period as extending from 1945 to 1989: Judt, Postwar, 2. Moeller, “The Politics of the Past,” 38.

308 Staging West German Democracy Through Adenauer’s function as patriarchal figurehead of the Federal Republic, the PR films offered their audiences an access to Adenauer and his policies that apart from political PR messages equally invited psychological affect—a highly dynamic feedback circuit that combined the relation of PR information to the audience with the projection of affection and emotion onto the Federal Republic’s patriarch.6 This resulted in the PR films’ praise of Adenauer as a pater patriae, a “widower wed to the nation,” a patriarchal provider figure adored by a devoted population for steering the Bonn Republic safely through the Cold War minefield. In their portrayals of Adenauer, the PR films are also documents of Adenauer’s changing public perception and position of power as chancellor over time. During his first period in office, from 1949 to 1953, Adenauer was not yet present in PR films as the legendary politician that especially the films produced between 1957 and 1961, which saw him at the height of his power, made him out to be. In 1951, only 23 percent of West Germans were “on the whole supportive” of Adenauer’s politics, while by 1955, this number had risen to 50 percent.7 Thirty percent maintained in 1955 that Adenauer had acted “too independently” when he had pushed through West German rearmament against the open resistance of the opposition.8 The symbolism discussed in the introduction that the Deutsche Wochenschau cameras produced in 1952 through a “superimposition” of Adenauer’s face over an image of Jesus Christ might therefore not only have been seen as too heavy-handed. It might also have been considered premature. The desire to establish Adenauer’s image as tireless negotiator for West Germany in the 1953 film A Man Advocates for his People on his first US state visit marks the beginning of the “chancellor films” and the onset of an image that each succeeding PR film perfected and added on to. Meeting in the Kremlin (1956) refined and transitioned Adenauer’s image of the “national negotiator” into one of a caring German national father figure, a pater patriae who quite literally brings “his lost sons” home. By the end of 1955, the Adenauer administration could confidently enumerate a string of political successes in the PR films that had established the Federal Republic as a sovereign state firmly integrated

6

7 8

This rests on Uta Schwarz’s examination of Adenauer’s screen image in regular Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreels, particularly on her concept of Adenauer as “projection screen” for West German collective ambitions and anxieties. Schwarz, Wochenschau, 352–66, especially 360. “Die Meinung über Bonn, 1951–1955,” Allensbach Institut (KAS Archiv I-172035/1), 30. “Die Meinung über Bonn, 1951–1955,” Allensbach Institut (KAS Archiv I-172035/1), 33.

Conclusion 309 into Western economic and defense networks. Most importantly, the Bonn–Paris Conventions had by then formalized the process of Western integration and made West Germany an integral part of NATO. In 1957, Adenauer’s CDU won an absolute majority in the federal election, a powerful validation of Adenauer’s leadership as chancellor and the efficiency of the CDU’s election campaigning. With an economic boom under way that would become known as the economic miracle (Wirtschaftswunder), the standard of living was rising steadily, while unemployment declined to such an extent that “full employment” (Vollbeschäftigung), a situation during which unemployment hovered between 0.8 and 1.3 percent, was achieved by 1960.9 Consequently, the tone of the PR films regarding the Federal Republic’s material affluence and international prestige grows noticeably more confident. A highwater mark in this process is 1961’s The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday, a filmic tribute to Adenauer which celebrates him as a beloved leader and the father of modern Germany. It is at this point at the latest that the PR films come dangerously close to canonizing Adenauer through symbolic and narrative patterns used by the Third Reich newsreel industry in relation to Hitler. The subsequent films produced after 1961 reflect the slow decline of Adenauer’s power. By then, at eighty-five years old, Adenauer had run into determined resistance among his party and political coalition partners. With the absolute majority lost in the 1961 election, the designated FDP coalition partners openly opposed another full term as federal chancellor, a sentiment it shared with many CDU/CSU members.10 By then, the Berlin Wall had become a powerful reminder that Adenauer’s promises of “reunification through Western integration” had found their limitations in Soviet totalitarianism. The chancellor’s initiative about a state-operated Deutschland-Fernsehen had failed in the Federal constitutional court in 1961. With his political reputation tarnished among his peers, Adenauer begrudgingly consented to stepping down in 1963.11 This situation changed Adenauer’s depiction in the PR films as well. The 1963 legacy film In the Service of the Fatherland markedly differs from the exuberant tone of The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday. Together with the film’s disorganized production, this makes

9 Hermann Adam, Wirtschaftspolitik und Regierungssystem der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Eine Einführung (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 1991), 58. 10 Evelyn Schmidtke, Der Bundeskanzler im Spannungsfeld zwischen Kanzlerdemokratie und Parteiendemokratie: ein Vergleich der Regierungsstile Konrad Adenauers und Helmut Kohls (Marburg: Tectum Verlag, 2001), 135. 11 Peter Borowsky, “Das Ende der ‘Ära Adenauer’,” Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, http://www.bpb.de/izpb/10093/das-ende-der-aera-adenauer?p=all (accessed June 11, 2018).

310 Staging West German Democracy clear that for the Press Office and the Deutsche Wochenschau in the fall of 1963, the age of Adenauer was over. In their uncritical celebration of Adenauer and his policies, the films examined in this book qualify as a uniquely West German incarnation of what is broadly (yet rather imprecisely) referred to as “propaganda.” The PR films illustrate how the long-established genre of persuasive film-making was adapted to the specific characteristics of the Federal Republic’s still-evolving media landscape. The eventual decline of the form during the Erhard years reflects a growing turn to TV for opinion formation, an improvement in critical media literacy (as evidenced by the “Spiegel affair” of 1962), and Erhard’s inability to create an image on the newsreel screen that was equally compelling as Adenauer’s. While acknowledging the PR films’ roots in traditions of propaganda that had evolved during the Kaiserreich, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, and the period of Allied occupation, this study has argued that by framing them as public relations (PR) statements, the films’ particular production circumstances and their inclusive, forwardlooking content of democratic nation-building, come to the fore. What is more, in framing the films as political PR, this study acknowledges the fundamental differences between the media systems and media productions of the Third Reich, the one of Allied-occupied Germany, and the Federal Republic. The PR films produced during the Adenauer years are not the same as the rabidly anti-Semitic, war-inciting propaganda produced during the Third Reich. Neither are they similar to Allied re-education propaganda that tried to eradicate Nazism. Most importantly, the PR films differ from Third Reich, Allied reeducation, and contemporary anti-communist Cold War propaganda by the absence of negative campaigning, such as open attacks on the CDU’s political opponent SPD, and by their abstinence from a deliberate manipulation of political facts based on overt lies.12 There can be no doubt that the PR films served a number of concrete sociopolitical interests in the name of which they sought to persuade their audience. However, their production circumstances, their role as one of many voices in a pluralistic and democratically-organized media system, their underlining of the constructive aspects of nation-building, and their avoidance of aggressive tropes that sought to discredit an “other” (be it anti-Semitism, anti-Nazism, or anti-Communism), all distinguish them from statements commonly defined as “propaganda.” This study has argued that the PR films were designed to provide a “government channel” vis-à-vis the West German democratic press and broadcasting system. The PR films provided Adenauer’s Federal Press

12 Cf. Rosumek, Die Kanzler und die Medien, 38.

Conclusion

311

Office with positive coverage, and in contrast to the administration’s more drastic methods in influencing opinion, their modes of production reflect a notably bi-partisan rhetoric. The PR films emphasized objectives rather than criticizing or demonizing these objectives’ opponents. In their function as foundational narratives, they faced the important task of integrating as many West Germans as possible in the still ongoing process of nation-building at a time when the ultimate success of so many objectives realized today was still in question. While they undoubtedly served the stabilization of the new West German democracy, the PR films have obviously not been free of party politics and often served the direct interest of the Adenauer administration and the CDU party. The preceding chapters reveal that the PR films were seen as instruments of establishing and maintaining political power by the Adenauer administration. In fact, their master narrative of success under Adenauer that implicitly urged for his re-election (a filmic allusion to the CDU’s campaign slogan “no experiments”) made them particularly well-suited to political campaigning. While not all of the PR films emerged as “PR gold” for campaigning purposes,13 in their compact form and entertainment value, the films in relatively inconspicuous ways and settings argued for Adenauer’s or the CDU’s re-election. Their financing through opaque channels like the Reptilienfonds, budget title 300, underlines their problematic double function that blurred the lines between the Adenauer administration and the CDU, between fostering democratic sentiment and party propaganda. The findings of this study call attention to several other open-ended questions that could not be given the attention they deserve due to space and thematic restrictions, and which call for further investigation. An issue that this book touched upon but could not address fully, are the gender hierarchies of the Adenauer period and the concomitant, blatant absence of women from the PR films. In presenting an entirely masculine world, the PR films even surpass the absence of women in West German positions of political power during the Adenauer period, when in 1957 only 9.3 percent of Bundestag representatives were female (in 2017, still less than a third of Bundestag representatives are female).14 Uta Schwarz’s study on newsreels, gender, and identity during the Adenauer years is an important contribution in this regard, and due to the PR films’ close kinship to the newsreel genre on terms of style and

13 Based on the archival records consulted, not all PR films saw an election campaigning deployment. For example, as shown in chapter four, 1956’s Meeting in the Kremlin was seen as unfit for this purpose. 14 Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, “Frauenanteil im Deutschen Bundestag,” http://www.bpb.de/gesellschaft/gender/frauen- in-deutschland/49418/ frauenanteil-im-deutschen-bundestag (accessed June 20, 2018).

312 Staging West German Democracy mode of production, her findings can for the most part be applied to the PR films as well.15 Generally speaking, the impression that the Federal Republic’s fate was entirely in the hands of men (and mainly Adenauer) wholly reflects the realities of the “project of normalization” of gender hierarchies to comply with the expectations of a conservative family politics.16 The fact that the PR films render West German politics as an entirely masculine affair reflects the roles the Adenauer administration envisioned for women as homemakers and happy consumers of the domestic benefits of the economic miracle. In this context, the deferential kiss on Adenauer’s hand by the mother of a POW interned in the Soviet Union featured in 1956’s Meeting in the Kremlin (chapter four) aptly reflects the gender hierarchies of the Adenauer period. The PR films also point to the continuing relevance of a critical media literacy. In an age when Twitter’s 240 characters have become a tool for policymaking, an awareness of persuasive strategies as demonstrated by the PR films’ is more needed than ever. At a time of democracies in crisis, when the youth’s identification with democracy is declining,17 while nationalist and authoritarian tendencies grow around the world, the PR films also offer a timely reminder of why democracy and Western networks of peaceful cooperation and trade, now under attack from populism, were advertised in the first place. Today, it might be worthwhile to recall the utter devastation of both people and infrastructure that the Federal Republic had to take on during its founding years. Regarding a critical media literacy, masculine savior figures, albeit nowadays in the service of populism and authoritarianism, are making a comeback these days. In this respect, the study of the PR films illustrates the decontamination of tropes of masculine leadership after the Third Reich, and it equally serves as a reference point to trace the reimplementation of these tropes in the service of anti-democratic ideas. Masculine savior characters in the media helped establish democracy, and we are currently witnessing their complicity in its apparent undoing. To add to this point, the search for a “government channel” in a democratic media landscape described in this book, as well its documentation of how persuasive strategies were encapsulated in government communications, very much seem to inform today’s media landscape on both sides of the Atlantic. Issues of partisanship journalism

15 See: Schwarz, Wochenschau. 16 Hannah Schissler, “’Normalization’ as Project,” 359–75. 17 Ian Bremmer, “Is Democracy Essential? Alarmingly, Millennials Aren’t so Sure.,” NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/democracyessential-millennials-increasingly-aren-t-sure-should-concern-us-ncna847476 (accessed June 28, 2018).

Conclusion 313 and propaganda, “clickbait headlines” attempting political indoctrination on social media, and “fake news” (be it actual distraction campaigns through the deliberate spread of false information, or accusations to such extent leveled at a democratic media system), seem to dominate the headlines in both the US and Germany. In addition, social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have contributed to a troubling proliferation and political instrumentalization of reporting that is based on political partisanship rather than on facts. Social network campaigns based on false information are being used to rally around political causes, win political campaigns, influence elections, or destroy people, ideas, and reputations. At a time when critics have come to realize that social media can be an impediment to free speech, corrode the social fabric, and threaten democracy,18 when Facebook serves as the main source of news for millennials,19 a nuanced understanding of media practices is more needed than ever. Perhaps not surprisingly, in the German context, the federal government’s efforts at presenting its own perspective through a “government channel” directed from the Federal Press Office continues unabated, and much in terms defined and pioneered by Adenauer. Recently, the administration of Angela Merkel (CDU) has come under scrutiny for such media activities. In 2011, fifty years after the Federal Constitutional Court’s Deutschland-Fernsehen GmbH verdict of 1961 had ended Adenauer’s aspirations for a state-run TV network by deciding that the state may not engage in broadcasting, the Merkel administration was accused of interfering with precisely this constitutional democratic safeguard. The administration was ordered to stop adding editorial content to the Parliament TV (Parlamentsfernsehen) network by the Commission for Licensing and Oversight of the Broadcasting Corporations (Kommission für Zulassung und Aufsicht der Landesmedienanstalten, ZAK). This network had been instituted by the Bundestag in 1999 to broadcast the debates live and in uncommented fashion. The ZAK argued in 2011 that the new editorial content violated the Constitutional Court’s verdict of 1961, and only uncommented live broadcasting would be in compliance with the ruling.20 18 See for example: Jaron Lanier, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2018). 19 “Social Media and News Websites Are the Most Common Pathways to Online News,” PEW Research Center, http://www.journalism.org/2017/02/09/howamericans-encounter- recall-and- act-upon- digital-news/pj_2017-02-09_ experiential_0-01/ (accessed April 10, 2017). 20 Christian Rath, “Verstößt Merkels Video-Podcast gegen das Verbot von Staatsrundfunk?” Badische Zeitung, April 10, 2018, http://www.badischezeitung.de/deutschland-1/verstoesst- merkels-video- podcast-gegen- dasverbot-von-staatsrundfunk

314 Staging West German Democracy In its search for a “government channel” free from such constitutional constraints, one that would allow it to reach the German population with targeted PR messages, Merkel’s Press Office, quite similar to the Adenauer administration, has also sought for alternatives to broadcasting. This search led to YouTube, where under the account name “Bundesregierung,” and maintained by the Press Office,21 an extensive online presence has grown.22 It contains among other things short podcasts of 1–3 minutes and short features on various topics, a weekly recap of “The chancellor’s week” (Die Woche der Kanzlerin), and hour-long interviews or discussion clips. All of these clips deliver information about the Merkel government, its activities and political goals from the perspective of the Federal Press Office. Merkel’s extensive presence on the streaming service has recently raised eyebrows in Germany. In 2018, German satirist Jan Böhmermann called attention to Merkel’s YouTube channel and asked whether this did not constitute broadcasting by the state. However, according to the Media Authority of Berlin-Brandenburg (Medienanstalt BerlinBrandenburg), due to the on-demand video’s non-linear set-up, in which the user still needs to click on the play button, Merkel’s podcast does not count as broadcasting.23 It is therefore exempt from the 1961 Constitutional Court ruling, when, to be sure, the federal judges had no idea of the future omnipresence of online media channels of today. Aided by a media legislation that did not keep up with technological developments, and through the Press Office’s investing heavily into ondemand online media, it seems the Merkel administration found its own “government channel” to bypass the Federal Republic’s democratic media landscape. Still, in 2018, Merkel’s government channel is “merely one voice on the infinite sea of medial pluralism,”24 much more than was the case in 1961, when the media landscape of the Federal Republic still had to defend its independence from the state. To conclude, this study has illustrated how PR films can be used to reconstruct an Alltagsgeschichte (everyday history) of the Federal

21 The YouTube account page https://www.youtube.com/user/bundesregierung/ about leads to the “Impressum” page. This page states as editor the Federal Press Office https://www.bundesregierung.de/Webs/Breg/DE/Service/ Impressum/impressum_node.html (accessed June 21, 2018). 22 Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, “Bundesregierung,” YouTube, www.youtube.com/user/bundesregierung (accessed June 21, 2018). 23 Christian Rath, “Verstößt Merkels Video-Podcast gegen das Verbot von Staatsrundfunk?” 24 Christian Rath, “Medien des Bundeskanzleramtes: Freier Sender Bundesregierung,” Die Tageszeitung: taz, April 7, 2018, https://www.taz.de/ !5494477/

Conclusion 315 Republic’s ongoing process of intense and concerted nation-building under Adenauer. Through their deliberately shaped image of Adenauer and the founding discourses regarding the new West German state and its capital Bonn, they offer an archeological treasure trove from which basic tenets of the Federal Republic’s efforts at building a collective postwar identity can be reconstructed. Considered as a distinct corpus among both the Press Office’s and the West German newsreel industry’s output, the PR films stand out as a compact and well-preserved body of cinematic texts that shed light on a heretofore overlooked aspect of the federal government’s media policies. Their immense importance for German Studies arises from their characteristic as a comprehensive ideal of the early Federal Republic that the Adenauer administration crafted on film that allows for the reconstruction of that era’s main ambitions and challenges.

316

List of Illustrations

Cover Image: Konrad Adenauer’s eighty-fourth birthday at the Federal Chancellery. Reproduced by kind permission of picture-alliance. The following film stills were retrieved from the Deutsche Wochenschau Archive, Hamburg. They are reproduced by kind permission of the German Federal Archive: Figure 0.1: Adenauer’s face reflected over the painting “Christ as Man of Sorrows.” Adenauer in Private (Adenauer privat, Deutsche Wochenschau (unreleased), 1952).

2

Figure 3.1: Adenauer in Arlington. A Man Advocates for his People (Ein Mann wirbt für sein Volk, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1953).

110

Figure 3.2: The Mercedes star in Washington DC as symbol of German sovereignty and economic prowess: Aside of Diplomatic Protocol (Abseits vom Protokoll, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1955).

117

Figure 3.3: Meeting in a private atmosphere of trust in Partners in Freedom (Partner der Freiheit, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1957).

121

Figure: 3.4: Eisenhower in Bonn. Visit of Trust (Besuch des Vertrauens, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1959).

125

Figure 3.5: Adenauer in Texas. Welcome Dr. Adenauer (Deutsche Wochenschau, 1961).

131

Figure 4.1: Adenauer’s delegation leaving for Moscow. Meeting in the Kremlin (Begegnung im Kreml, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1956).

160

Figure 4.2: A POW’s mother gratefully kisses Adenauer’s hand after his successful return from Moscow. Meeting in the Kremlin.

167

317

318 List of Illustrations Figures 4.3–4.5: Montage of three medium-close-ups of former German soldiers and civilians reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Meeting in the Kremlin.

174–5

Figure 5.1: Adenauer at the Arc de Triomphe. Two Nations Reconcile (Zwei Völker versöhnen sich, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1962).

183

Figure 5.2: Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle in Reims. Two Nations Reconcile.

201

Figure 5.3: De Gaulle meeting Thyssen workers. The Path into the Future (Der Weg in die Zukunft, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1962).

213

Figure 5.4: De Gaulle shaking hands with German Second World War veterans. The Path into the Future.

215

Figure 6.1: Shots of students of color to underline Bonn’s internationalism. Visiting Bonn: A Report of the Political Life in the Federal Capital (Zu Gast in Bonn: Ein Bericht aus dem politischen Leben der Bundeshauptstadt, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1961).

233

Figure 6.2: Discourse of connectedness: Map highlighting Bonn’s diplomatic connections around the world. Visiting Bonn.

235

Figure 6.3: The visual spectacle of foreign visitors against the backdrop of the Rhineland. Visiting Bonn.

238

Figure 7.1: Adenauer among his family during the celebration of his eighty-fifth birthday at the Federal Chancellery. The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday (Der 85. Geburtstag des Bundeskanzlers, 1961).

272

Figure 7.2: Adenauer looking at a devotional statue. The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday.

276

Figure 7.3: Adenauer (center) during the Grand Tattoo ceremony in honor of his eighty-fifth birthday. The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday.

277

Figure 7.4: Detail shot of Adenauer’s forehead while working during his summer vacation in Cadenabbia, Italy. In the Service of the Fatherland (Um das Vaterland verdient gemacht, Deutsche Wochenschau, 1963).

295

Figure 7.5: Adenauer and Germany, visually equated. In the Service of the Fatherland.

299

Archival Records Consulted

Deutsche Wochenschau Archive, Hamburg Folders on the PR films, categorized along the films’ working or final titles, without systematic numbering Deutsche Wochenschau PR Films in DVD Copy: Der erste Schritt (1951) Nicht ohne uns (1951) Ein Mann wirbt für sein Volk (1953) Wiedersehen mit Amerika (1955) Abseits vom Protokoll (1955) Der große Irrtum (1955) Begegnung im Kreml (1956) Partner der Freiheit (1957) Handschlag mit Amerika (1957) Besuch des Vertrauens (1959) Begegnung mit Deutschland (1959) Zu Gast in Bonn: Ein Bericht aus dem politischen Leben der Bundeshauptstadt (1961) Welcome, Dr. Adenauer (1961) Zwei Völker versöhnen sich (1962) Der Weg in die Zukunft (1962) Deutschland grüßt Kennedy (1963) Nachbarn (1963) Um das Vaterland verdient gemacht (1963) Deutsche Wochenschau PR Films in VHS Copy: Koblenzer Strasse 99–103: Der Alltag des Auswärtigen Amts (1961/3) IFAG PR Films in DVD Copy: Ferien ohne Urlaub (1960) Aus der Bundeshauptstadt (1962)

319

320 Archival Records Consulted HICOG Reorientation Films in VHS Copy: Als die Freiheit rief (1951) Newsreel segments in VHS Copy: Adenauer in Private (unreleased) (Adenauer Privat [unveröffentlicht]), Deutsche Wochenschau 1952. “Hinter den Kulissen,” Welt im Bild No. 79, 1953. “Mit dem Musterkoffer unterwegs,” Neue Deutsche Wochenschau No. 349, 1956.

Other Sources for Films Ufa-Tonwoche, April 25, 1939. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=3m24HMOYiHk Retrieved on June 12, 2016. Die Deutsche Wochenschau, June 22, 1940. YouTube. (https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=vmuCRCLU_h0). Retrieved on October 10, 2014.

Bundesarchiv, Koblenz Files of the Federal Press Office and the Federal Chancellery: B145/4628 B145/824 B145/52 B145/112 B145/209 B145/1475 B145/4671 B145/4669 B145/4670 B145/1444 B145/1459 B145/1453 B145/2816 B145/2876 B136/4668 B136/4669 Files of the Finance Ministry: B106/959 B106/958

Archival Records Consulted 321 Files of the Federal Building administration: B157/336 B157/3443 B157/3444 Newsreels accessed online through the filmothek website of the Bundesarchiv: Welt im Film No. 139, January 22, 1948 Welt im Film No. 170, August 27, 1948 Welt im Film No. 174, September 27, 1948

Archiv der Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), Sankt Augustin Files of the “Nachlass Otto Lenz”: I-172-035/1 I-172-046/4 I-172-047/3 I-172-048/3 I-172-051/1 I-172-058/2

Archiv der Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) online Letter by Adenauer to Ollenhauer, January 29, 1955. KAS Archiv online. http://www.konrad-adenauer.de/dokumente/briefe/briefollenhauer

Interviews Interview with Susanne Serowiecki, Archival Specialist, Deutsche Wochenschau archive Hamburg, July 8, 2013. Interview with Manfred Purzer, former Editor in Chief, Deutsche Wochenschau, Munich, June 27, 2015.

322

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330 Bibliography Schmidt, Helmut. “Ankunft der Spätheimkehrer aus sowjetischer Kriegsgefangenenschaft.” Manuscript, Gedenkstätte Herleshausen, 2006, http://www.herleshausen.de/Spaet/Spheimk.pdf Schmidtke, Evelyn. Der Bundeskanzler im Spannungsfeld zwischen Kanzlerdemokratie und Parteiendemokratie: ein Vergleich der Regierungsstile Konrad Adenauers und Helmut Kohls. Marburg: Tectum Verlag, 2001. Schneider, Dieter Marc. “Französische Besatzungspolitik in Deutschland: Le Rêve d’une ‘Libération’ des Pays Rhénans.” In Erobert oder befreit? Deutschland im internationalen Kräftefeld und die sowjetische Besatzungszone (1945/46), edited by Hartmut Mehringer, Michael Schwarz, and Hermann Wentker, 29–46. Munich: Oldenbourg, 1998. Schröder, Hans-Jürgen. “Wahlkampfbilder: Die Visualisierung von Adenauers Amerikareisen 1953 und 1957 in Propagandafilmen der CDU.” In Wahlkämpfe in Deutschland: Fallstudien zur Wahlkampfkommunikation 1912–2005, edited by Nikolaus Jakob, 137–50. Wiesbaden: Springer VS , 2007. Schumacher, Frank. Kalter Krieg und Propaganda: Die USA, der Kampf um die Weltmeinung und die ideelle Westbindung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1945– 1955. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2000. Schwarz, Uta. Wochenschau, westdeutsche Identität und Geschlecht in den Fünfziger Jahren. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2002. Sen Satadru. Colonial Childhoods: The Juvenile Periphery of India 1850–1945. London: Anthem Press, 2005. “Social Media and News Websites Are the Most Common Pathways to Online News” Pew Research Center. http://www.journalism.org/2017/02/09/ how-americans-encounter-recall-and-act-upon-digital-news/pj_2017-02-09_ experiential_0-01/ (accessed April 10, 2017). Sommer, Doris. Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. “Sonne spielt in neuem Bonn-Film mit.” General-Anzeiger, April 30, 1957. Sontheimer, Kurt. Die Adenauer-Ära: Grundlegung der Bundesrepublik. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1991. Spicka, Mark E. Selling the Economic Miracle: Economic Reconstruction and Politics in West Germany, 1949–57. New York: Berghahn Books, 2007. Steininger, Rolf. “Rundfunkpolitik im ersten Kabinett Adenauer.” Vierteljahrshefte Für Zeitgeschichte 21, no. 4 (October 1973): 388–434. “LeMO Objekt: Plakat Wohlstand für alle.” Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. https://www.hdg.de/lemo/bestand/objekt/ plakat-wohlstand-fuer-alle-erhard-cdu.html (accessed October 28, 2016). “Streit Um Kennedy-Film-Premiere.” Hersfelder Volkszeitung, August 13, 1963. Uelzmann, Jan. “Symbolic Homecoming of the ‘Hero-Father’: Realignment of National Memory in the Neue Deutsche Wochenschau Special Feature on Konrad Adenauer’s 1955 State Visit to Moscow.” Colloquia Germanica 45, no. 1 (2012): 41–68. Uelzmann, Jan. “Bonn, Divided City: Cityscape as Political Critique in Wolfgang Koeppen’s Das Treibhaus and Günther Weisenborn’s Auf Sand Gebaut.” Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies 50, no. 4 (2014): 436–60. https://doi. org/10.3138/sem.50.4.436 Uelzmann, Jan. “Bonn, World City: Explaining the FRG’s Provisional Capital through Government Commissioned Documentaries during the Adenauer Years.” Monatshefte, 108, no. 2 (2016): 202–32.

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Films Reifarth, Dieter. Wie werde ich Demokrat? Documentary, 2002. http://www.imdb. com/title/tt0471973/ Riefenstahl, Leni. Triumph of the Will. Documentary, 1935. http://www.imdb.com/ title/tt0025913/ Ruttmann, Walther. Berlin: Symphony of a Great City. Documentary, 1927. http:// www.imdb.com/title/tt0017668/

332

Index

Adenauer administration attempting to control public broadcasting 60 Deutsche Wochenschau and 100 media policies of 22, 60, 64 newsreels and 60–1, 81 PR films and 17, 39, 311 Press Office and 65 Adenauer, Konrad 85th birthday of 263–5 (see also The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday) Adenauerisms 112, 271, 274, 282, 285, 294 anti-Communism of 29, 271, 306 in Arlington 110 becoming the first Federal Chancellor 38 Bonn and 235, 240–1, 260 Brandt and 142 charismatic portrayals of 7–8 concerns about his age 108, 134 continuing political influence of 293 de Gaulle and 30, 182, 185, 186–7, 193, 201, 212 declining power of 309–10 Deutsche Wochenschau and 1, 3, 5–6, 80, 86

ecclesiastic symbolism and 1–3, 5, 48 Eisenhower and 104, 105, 118, 122, 123 as Elder of the House 300 film coverage of 3 as the first media chancellor 62 Franco-German friendship and 215 Franco-German political rapprochement and 185–6 image as a father of the nation 28, 31, 33, 45, 46–7, 151, 152, 160, 170, 264, 269–70, 273–4, 278 international reputation of 268, 274 Kennedy and 129–30, 135–7 leadership of 22, 44, 48–9, 302 legacy projects of 281–8 as the liberator of the prisoners 150, 151–3, 167 Lyndon B. Johnson and 130–2 media image of 67, 108, 177, 265, 270, 275–6, 308 media policies of 11, 63–4 paternalism of 45–6, 151–2, 168, 169, 263–5, 268 patriarchy of 44, 272–3, 300, 308

333

334 Index personality cult of 151, 267, 278, 280 political career of 62–3 political legacy of 283, 293, 300, 301–2 popularity of 101, 112, 215–16, 308, 309 portrait of 294 POW’s mother kissing Adenauer’s hand 167 PR films and 4, 12, 14–16, 44–5, 116, 307–8 the press and 63–4, 296 the Press Office and 64–5, 69 promoting foundational values through 44–9 public relations and 65–6, 75, 76 as a redeemer figure 48, 151, 275, 276, 280 religion and 47–8, 151, 156, 165, 198, 271, 275 as representing Germany 234 resignation of 136, 288, 292–3, 298–9, 309 (see also In the Service of the Fatherland . . .) retirement of 283 screen image of 44–5, 82, 156, 307 second federal elections and 57–8, 104, 105, 119 as a student of US democracy 109 undergoing a personalization strategy 45 the US and 17–18, 66–8, 102–3, 104, 109–11 the US supporting his reelection 104, 105, 119 views on the West Germany media landscape 59–64 visiting France 30 visiting the Soviet Union 29, 147 (see also Meeting in the Kremlin . . .) Wilhelm Luppa and 8, 217

Adenauer, Paul 271 ADK. See Consortium of Democratic Circles The Adoration of the Kings 109 aircraft, Lufthansa Super Constellation 161, 162, 166 airlines, West German national 128 Allensbach Institute 51, 53, 54, 71 Allied High Commission 240 Altmeier, Peter 222 America Revisited (Wiedersehen mit Amerika) 97, 98, 115–19 amnesty laws (1949 and 1954) 43, 93 anti-Communism of Adenauer 29, 271, 306 of the Federal Republic 54, 178 Arc de Triomphe, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier 183–4, 195 archives of the Federal Chancellor 281 newsreels 94 the situation of 23–4 ARD television network 16, 19, 20, 88, 219 army, West German 297 (see also rearmament) Aside of Diplomatic Protocol (Abseits vom Protokoll) 97, 115–19 Assmann, Aleida 49 audio dubbing 155 Der Augenzeuge (The Eyewitness) newsreel 81–2 Augstein, Rudolf 19, 60 Augustusburg Palace 236 Auschwitz Trials 255 Basic Law (Grundgesetz) 38, 41 Bavaria Filmstudios, Munich 81 Behind the Scenes (Hinter den Kulissen) 226–7

Index 335 Berlin Adenauer visiting in 1963 297–8 Berlin Wall 133, 135, 137, 223, 241, 261 Berlin week 1956 228 Bonn and 219–20 (see also Bonn) divided into four sectors 51 Kennedy visiting 137–40 Berlin Airlift 36–7 Airlift Memorial 138 Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (Berlin – die Sinfonie der Großstadt) 250, 251 Bernard, Roy 114 Bernauer Strasse 138 Betz, Kurt America Revisited and 115 Deutsche Wochenschau and 85, 90 Federal Press Office and 65, 89, 90, 93, 94–5, 96, 97, 229–30 financing of PR films and 91 Koblenzer Strasse 99–103 . . . and 244, 246–7 Konrad Adenauer – The Man and the Statesman and 284 A Man Advocates for his People and 106 Meeting in the Kremlin and 154, 155 The Path into the Future and 204, 205 In the Service of the Fatherland and 290–1 Two Nations Reconcile and 188 Welcome Dr. Adenauer and 127 Bhumibol Adulyadej 237, 239–40 Bi-Zone, economic recovery of 36 Bildung, culture of 234 Black Market (Schwarzmarkt) 35, 36 Blick in die Welt (View of the World) newsreel 10, 81

Blücher, Franz 167 Böhmermann, Jan 314 Bonn (see also Visiting Bonn . . .) Adenauer and 235, 240–1, 260 alienation between the Germanies and 222–3 the Bonn effect 220–1, 232, 237, 241, 251 Bonn University 233 building freeze 225 Bundestag building 219 criticisms of 223–4, 225–6 de Gaulle’s visit to in 1962 208, 211 history of the decision for Bonn as the provisional capital 221–2 internationalism and connectedness of 231, 233, 235–6, 239–40, 249–51, 260–1 PR films promoting 228 as provisional capital 30, 38, 42, 220, 223, 227–8, 241, 261 thematic precursors and contemporaries 226–8 as a world city 221 Bonn–Paris Conventions 1955 39–40, 42, 103, 115, 309 Böx, Heinrich 80, 85 Brady, Steven 103, 112–13 Brandenburg Gate 138 Brandes, Klaus 92 Brandt, Willy 138, 139–40, 142, 223, 261, 268 Brentano, Heinrich von 122, 156, 157, 240, 242, 245–6 Bringmann, Karl 155 Bucerius, Gerd 224 Bundeshaus 226 Bundesrat 38 Bundesregierung 314 Bundestag 38, 42, 171, 226, 300 Bundestag Budget Committee (Haushaltsausschuss) 69

336 Index Bundestag building, Bonn 219 Bundeswehr 54, 55, 205, 209, 211, 297 Butler, Judith 185 Cadenabbia, Italy 294–6 Cairo 253 camera technology 96 Carter, Erica 170 Catholic News Service (Katholische Nachrichtenagentur) 155 CDU Adenauer and 293 Deutsche Wochenschau and 82 the economy and 53, 54 election campaigning of 309 A Man Advocates for his People and 113 political PR and 26 PR films and 6, 311 public image of 71–2 public opinion crisis 57–8 Champetier, Henri 187 chancellor democracy (Kanzlerdemokratie) 69, 264 chancellor effect 67 chancellor films (Kanzlerfilme) 7, 22, 24, 54, 73, 308 chancellor folder (Kanzlermappe) 64 Château de la Brède 198 Château de Margeaux 189 Checkpoint Charlie 138 “Christ as Man of Sorrows” 1–2 Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), (Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands). See CDU Christianity 151 Christlicher Filmdienst 141 Churchill, Winston 35 Cinecentrum company 88 Cinema in Democratizing Germany 25–6

cinemas, screening of PR films 6 Cleinow, Marcel 94, 107 closure, given to West Germans 177 Cold War Cold War alliance 135, 150, 156, 158 Cold Warrior discourse 34, 150, 151, 177, 304 PR films and 29 propaganda competition 258–9 and relations with the United States 102–3 reunification and 42 collective memory “exorcism” of Third Reich 214 French of the World Wars and occupation 181, 182, 191, 194–5 healing work on 29, 30, 152, 160, 176 manipulation of 216–17, 265, 306 overwriting of 123–4, 148–9, 159, 169, 177, 182–3, 183–5, 195, 207, 306, 307 PR films and 49 realignment of 214 of Reims Cathedral 202 World War I and 192–3, 196–7, 217 World War II and 110–11, 182 colonialism 256–8, 259, 260 Columbia Filmgesellschaft 140, 141 Commission for Licensing and Oversight of the Broadcasting Corporations (Kommission für Zulassung und Aufsicht der Landesmedienanstalten, ZAK) 313 Communism (see also anti-Communism) godlessness of 151, 165 struggle against 300

Index 337 community, imagined 148 Conant, James 104 conservative family politics 47, 312 Consortium for Civic Education (Arbeitsgemeinschaft staatsbürgerliche Erziehung) 77 Consortium of Democratic Circles (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Demokratischer Kreise, ADK) 54, 76–7, 249 contracts, PR films and 92 cooperation, Franco-German 30, 206 CSU (Christlich Soziale Union) 58, 150, 157, 293, 309 Cuban missile crisis 1962 135 cultural heritage, shared FrancoGerman 197 culture(s) of Bildung 234 government-sanctioned view of 62 currency reform (1948) 36 de Gaulle, Charles Adenauer and 30, 182, 185, 186–7, 193, 201, 212 collective memory of the Second World War and 123–5 enthusiasm for Franco-German reconciliation 207 the French resistance and 208, 209 visit to the Thyssen steel plant 1962 212–14 visit to Bonn 1962 208, 211 visit to Munich 184 visit to West Germany 1962 24, 30, 202–16 democracy chancellor democracy 69, 264 in crisis 312 dividends of 305

former Nazi supporters and 51 parliamentary democracy 40, 50–3 period of democracy propaganda 5 PR films and 10, 52, 303–15 reorienting Germans towards 25–6 staging of 44–56, 303–15 through consumption 51 democratic procedures, reeducational films and 10 Derix, Simone 49, 123, 124, 184, 207, 208, 214, 232 Deuling-Woche newsreel 8 Deutsche Film Aktiengesellschaft (DEFA) 81–2 Deutsche Mark (DM) 36 Deutsche Reportagefilm (German Reporting Film) 77–8, 88, 97–8, 105–6, 247, 269 Deutsche Wochenschau accommodating attitude of 90 Adenauer administration and 100 Adenauer and 1, 3, 5–6, 80, 86 board of directors/advisory board of 84–6 CDU bias in 82 Deutsche Reportagefilm and 78 Deutsche Wochenschau Archive, Hamburg 23–4 Federal Press Office and 3, 5–6, 21–2, 28, 58, 59, 61, 91 film editors of 94–5 financing of 86, 87–8 founding of through the Federal Government 80–9 as a government institution 99–100 as an instrument of nationbuilding 38–40 Koblenzer Strasse 99–103 . . . and 247, 248

338 Index lack of objectivity in the newsreels 16 leadership of 89 ownership of 83 PR films and 18, 20–2, 60, 87 production capabilities of 21 reporting of 11–12 role of 303 Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and 12, 82, 85 special feature films (Sonderfilme) 88 Third Reich 9, 210 uncritical stance of 61 Deutsche Wochenschau GmbH 20, 97 Die Deutsche Wochenschau newsreels 92, 94, 196, 226–8 Deutschland-Fernsehen GmbH verdict 1961 313, 314 Deutschland-Fernsehen TV network 60 Deutschlandplan 56 developmental aid 238–9, 256 diaspora, German in the US 131 diplomacy Bonn and 236, 237–8 Koblenzer Strasse’s “diplomatic stories” 254–5 PR films and 98–9 with the Soviet Union 152–3, 156, 171 with the United States 115–22 Dipper, Christoph 12 discourse(s) Cold Warrior 34, 150, 151, 177, 304 of connectedness 34, 220, 221, 235 father of the nation discourse 34, 265, 266 founding 42 German victim 149–50, 163–4

reconciliation 30, 34, 185 stability discourse 29, 34, 102–3, 114, 123, 133, 135, 253 division, of Germany 42 documentary films 3, 17 Dönhoff, Marion Gräfin Von 223, 224 Dulles, John Foster 122, 286 Eastern citizens, A Man Advocates for his People and 114 Eckardt, Felix von 67–8, 69, 85, 106, 107, 109 economy economic development 128 economic miracle 51, 52, 54, 149, 162, 239, 252–3, 309 economic recovery of the BiZone 36 in the immediate post war period 35 social market 53–4 Eisenhower, Dwight 104, 105, 108–9, 118, 120–1, 122–6, 237, 305 (see also Visit of Trust . . .) election campaigning mobile screening trucks and 78–9 Otto Lenz and 72–3 Élysée Treaty 1963 30, 186 employment 309 entertainment, newsreels/PR films as 16, 18–19 Erbfeindschaft (hereditary enmity) 187 Erhard, Ludwig 36, 53, 139, 283, 292–3, 296, 300, 310 The Eternal Jew (Der ewige Jude) 93 European Community, FrancoGerman relationship and 182, 186

Index 339 European Defense Community 77 European Economic Community (EEC) 234, 274–5 European integration 203, 208, 211, 216, 217 evil, triumph over 151 exports, to the US 117–18 Facebook 313 fake news 313 family(ies) conservative family politics 47, 170 ideal of the paternalistic father 47 the national family 46, 151–2, 160, 161 FDP coalition 309 Federal Building Administration (Bundesbaudirektion) 251 Federal Central Agency for Domestic Service (Bundeszentrale für Heimatdienst) 73 Federal Chancellery (Bundeskanzleramt) 22, 59n.12, 61, 64, 79, 268 The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday (Der 85. Geburtstag des Bundeskanzlers) 31, 93, 266, 267–81, 301, 309 Federal Court of Auditors (Bundesrechnungshof) 69 Federal Government, PR needs of 40–4 Federal Press Office (Presse und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung) Adenauer administration and 65 Adenauer and 64–5, 69 de Gaulle’s visit to West Germany 1962 203–4

Deutsche Wochenschau and 3, 5–6, 21–2, 28, 58, 59, 61, 91 The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday and 268–9 founding of 64–72 funding of 68–9, 73 governmental PR work and 20 Heads of the Press Office 67 Koblenzer Strasse 99–103 . . . and 245–6, 247, 248 legacy films 266 A Man Advocates for his People and 114 Meeting in the Kremlin and 153–4, 156, 162, 178 Merkel and 314 The Path into the Future and 204–6, 216 power and 65 PR films and 65, 66–7, 89, 90, 93, 95, 96–7, 99–100, 143, 303, 304, 310–11 promotion of Bonn 220, 226–7 (see also Visiting Bonn . . .) resignation of Adenauer and 290 screen image of Adenauer and 307 In the Service of the Fatherland and 289, 291 state visits to the US and 105 Visiting Bonn . . . and 229–30, 231 Federal Prize for Documentary Film (Kulturfilmpreis ldes Bundes) 143 Federal Republic anti-Communism of the 54, 178 as a diplomatic powerhouse 250 foreign policy of 101–2, 234, 236 founding myth of 176 founding of 25, 34–8 political sovereignty of 115, 161 second federal election 57

340 Index The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy (Deutschland grüßt Kennedy) 99, 133–44, 298 Fehrenbach, Heide 9, 25–6 Feldherrnhalle 214 Film Division (Filmreferat), of the Federal Press Office 65 film(s) (see also names of individual films; PR (public relations) films) Allied re-educational 9–10, 310 chancellor films 7, 22, 24, 54, 73, 308 documentary films 3, 17 Kulturfilms 3, 8–10, 19, 87 legacy films 266–7, 279–80 power and 8 special feature films (Sonderfilme) 88 The First Step (Der erste Schritt) 54, 78 Foreign Office Koblenzer Strasse 99–103 . . . and 241–3, 247, 248, 250, 251–2 scandal surrounding the staffing of 43 Third Reich past of 243, 244–5 foreign policy of Adenauer and the US 104 developmental aid 238–9, 256 of the Federal Republic 101–2, 234, 236 Foreign Office and 252 Four Powers Agreement 297 FOX-Tönende Wochenschau (FOX Sound Newsreel) 81 France (see also de Gaulle, Charles) Adenauer visiting 30 (see also Two Nations Reconcile) collective memory of war 181, 182, 191, 194–5 Franco-German cooperation 30, 206

Franco-German rapprochement 198, 203, 215, 306 Franco-German reconciliation 182, 191, 193, 203, 206, 207, 212, 248, 306 Franco-German relationship 181–2, 185–7 the French situation 193 occupation of 194 Frankfurt Documents (Frankfurter Dokumente) 1948 37, 41, 222 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 130 Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper 143 Free Democratic Party (FDP) 68 Freese, Hans 251 Friendship with the World (Freundschaft mit der Welt) 94 funding of PR films 69, 90–1, 106, 133 of the Press Office 68–9, 73 Geibel, Emanuel 255 gender gender relations 169–70 hierarchies of the Adenauer period 311–12 patriarchal gender order 47 General Treaty 1952 240 German Correspondence (Deutsche Korrespondenz) 77 The German Emperor on Film (Der deutsche Kaiser im Film) 266 German Federal Archive (Bundesarchiv), Koblenz 23–4 German Letters for Teachers (Deutsche Lehrerbriefe) 77 German question 42, 120, 137 Germanness 212 Gerstenmaier, Eugen 219–20, 237, 291–2, 300 Gesinnungspresse of Germany 63 Gironde region 197, 198

Index 341 Glawion, Sven 48 Globke, Hans 43, 95, 115–16, 274 Goebbels, Joseph 9, 63, 66, 279 Golden Book of the Arc de Triomphe 196 governmental PR 20–2 Grand Tattoo (Großer Zapfenstreich) in de Gaule’s honor 205, 209–11 The Federal Chancellor’s 85th Birthday and 268, 276–8 The Great Misapprehension (Der große Irrtum) 55, 228 Grierson, John 17 Grund, Horst 92, 93, 210, 230–1 guest workers (Gastarbeiter) 252 guilt, German 177 Guinea 244, 256–9 Hake, Sabine 266 Hallstein, Walter 274–5, 278 Hansing, Ernst Gunter 294 Hardtwig, Wolfgang 43 Haschemi, Elahe 48 Hase, Karl-Günther von 281 Hassel, Kai-Uwe von 299 Heinze-Mansfeld, Eckart 243 Hermann E.Thiel publishing house 77 Heuss, Theodor 172, 175 HICOG film division 114 Himmler, Heinrich L. 279 Hippler, Fritz 93 Hirsch, Étienne 274–5 history, and newsreels/PR films 14–15 Hitler, Adolf 9, 51, 52, 266–7, 278–80 Hitler-Ludendorff coup 1923 214 Hodenberg, Christina von 63–4, 69–70 Hoffmann, Johannes 79, 83 Hoffmann, Kay 26 Hollande, François 307 Holocaust, Hans Globke and 43

Hotel Petersberg 240 Hugenberg, Alfred 8–9 humanitarian aid 256 Hungary uprising 1956 224 Husman-Kastein, Jana 48 identification audience 17 with the chancellor 31 with the new West German state/leader 34 identity(ies) Germanness 212 hegemonic masculine of Adenauer 275 postwar 39, 303, 305 the Rhine river and 208–9 West German 34, 49, 149, 301 ideology, Nazi 9 IFAG Filmproduktion, Wiesbaden 20, 227 IG Farben 39 image the Allies’ positive image 37 media image of Adenauer 67, 108, 177, 265, 270, 275–6, 308 screen image of Adenauer 44–5, 82, 156, 307 self-image of Germans 208 imagined community 148 In the Service of the Fatherland (Um das Vaterland verdient gemacht) 31, 134, 266, 273, 288–301, 309–10 The Inability to Mourn 46 Insel-Film company 20, 287, 289 Jarausch, Konrad 51 Johnen, Wilhelm 287 Johnson, Lyndon B. 130–2 journalism Adenauer and 63–4, 296 critical 60, 79 partisan 312–13

342 Index K-Filme 22 Kaiserreich (1871–1918) 8, 46, 51, 62, 266 Kausch, Hans-Joachim 143 Kennedy, John F. (see also Federal Republic Greets . . .) Adenauer and 129–30, 135–7, 305 assassination of 141 visit to Germany 1963 19, 132–44, 254 Khan, Ayub 239 Khrushchev, Nikita S. 163, 166 Kiesinger, Kurt Georg 215 Kilian, Werner 150 Koblenzer Strasse 99–103: A Report on the Daily Routine of the Foreign Office (Koblenzer Strasse 99–103: Ein Bericht über den Alltag des Auswärtigen Amts) 30, 97, 221, 241–60 Kohl, Helmut 307 Konrad Adenauer Foundation 23 Konrad Adenauer, his Life and Works (Konrad Adenauer, sein Leben und sein Werk) 285–6, 287 Konrad Adenauer – The Man and the Statesman (Konrad Adenauer – Mensch und Staatsmann) 284 Körber, Esther-Beate 15, 16, 17 Krüger, Jens 119 Krupp 39 Kuby, Erich 223 Kulturfilms 3, 8–10, 19, 87 Kuntze-Just, Heinz 80–1, 85–6 Landahl, Heinrich 84 Landesfilmdienste 6, 98, 125, 231, 291 language, symbolic 159–76, 306 Law on the Equality of Men and Women (Gleichberechtigungsgesetz) 1957 47

leadership of Adenauer 22, 44, 48–9, 302 masculine 4, 31, 44, 46, 140, 302, 312 paternalistic 48–9 League of Free Democrats (Bund aktiver Demokraten) 77 legacy films 266–7, 279–80 legacy projects, of Adenauer 281–8 Lehnert, Sigrun 15–16, 26, 81, 84 Lehr, Robert 86 Lenz, Otto Büro Otto Lenz and political power 72–9 clandestine PR outlets of 106 PR activities of 59, 99–100 the press and 69–70 propaganda and 58, 66 Lex Ufi 83 Lübke, Heinrich 215, 273 Ludwigsburg Castle, BadenWürttemberg 215 Lufthansa 128, 161 Lufthansa Super Constellation 161, 162, 166 Luppa, Wilhelm 8, 92, 106, 115, 126, 134, 188, 204, 282, 285, 286–7, 290 “Made in West Germany” label 239 A Man Advocates for his People (Ein Mann wirbt für sein Volk) 3–4, 7, 66–7, 97, 98, 101, 104–14, 144, 308 Marshall Plan (1948–52) 35–6, 54, 103 massacre, by the SS at Oradoursur-Glane 181 media Adenauer and 11, 63–4, 296 critical media literacy 312, 313 government use of 6–7

Index 343 media image of Adenauer 67, 108, 177, 275–6, 308 media system resisting government influence 60 new 314 newsreels and media history 15–16 policies 11, 22, 60, 63–4 the Press Office and media relations 65 public opinion and media systems 63 Media Authority of BerlinBrandenburg (Medienanstalt Berlin-Brandenburg) 314 Meeting in the Kremlin (Begegnung im Kreml) the Cold War and 29 community of victims and 307 memory work and 147–8, 150 narrative pattern of 160 planning the report on 153–9 portrayal of Moscow 154–5, 162–3 portrayal of the Soviets 154–7 public image of Adenauer and 152, 304, 308 public relations value of 176–9 Soviet newsreel material 94 symbolic language used in 159–76, 306 symbolic use of the Lufthansa colors 128 memory, politics of 307 memory spaces inscribing with new meaning 195 problematic German 211 re-inscribing military 214 staging performative acts of at Franco-German 183–5, 198, 202 transformation of 198

memory work 148, 150, 159, 177 men, post war shortage of 47 Mercedes-Benz, exporting to the US 117–18 Merkatz, Heinrich von 88 Merkel, Angela 307, 313–14 Messter, Oskar 8 Messter Wochenschau newsreel 8 military imagery, of the Third Reich 210 Minister of Economics 53 Minister of Family Affairs 47 Minister Presidents 41 Ministry for All-German Issues (Ministerium für Gesamtdeutsche Fragen) 73 Mitscherlich, Margarethe and Alexander 46, 47 Mitterrand, François 307 Mobilwerbung GmbH (Mobile Advertising) 77, 291 mobile film screening technology 73, 78–9, 98, 259, 307 Moeller, Robert G. 148–9, 151, 176 Moscow 162–3 Moscow: Myth of Power (Moskau, Mythos der Macht) 155 Mourmelon 198, 200 Movie Review Board for Youth and Schools, West Berlin 143 Munich 184, 214 Munich Agreement 1938 244–5 myths founding 307 nation of victims 149–50, 196, 197, 307 of the redeemer 48–9 narrative(s) hero-father narrative 160 of success 34, 306, 307 victim 172, 176, 177

344 Index nation-building Deutsche Wochenschau as an instrument of 38–40 newsreels and 18 PR films and 4–5, 39, 304, 305, 315 propaganda and 10 the road to nationhood 34–8 stability and 29 national family, German 46, 151–2, 160, 161 National Socialism, atrocities carried out under 35 National Socialist propaganda 63 NATO membership 40, 54–5, 103, 115, 186, 274, 297 Nazism (see also Hitler, Adolf; Third Reich (1933–45)) clear break with 41 discrediting of 9–10 Kulturfilms and 9 Nazi party propaganda 9 reintegration of former Nazis 41, 43 Neckar-Echo 156 Nehru, Jawaharlal 237 Neighbors (Nachbarn) 192 Neue Deutsche Wochenschau, founding of 82–3 (see also Deutsche Wochenschau) Neue Deutsche Wochenschau GmbH 87 Neue Deutsche Wochenschau newsreels the Adenauer administration and 18 Adenauer’s media image in 265, 270 cameramen 93 decline of 88 German and world politics and 61 and the nation-building process 39

PR films and 303 production of 86 repatriation of POWs 159 screen image of Adenauer 44 Tagesschau and 16 news, dissemination of 60 newspapers 60 newsreels (see also names of individual newsreels) Adenauer administration and 60–1, 81 Allied 36, 37, 81 decline of 19–20 as entertainment 16, 18–19 as a historical source 15, 16 importance of to the government 81 nation-building and 18 newsreel genre 3, 6, 8–10 Press Office and 80 Third Reich 267 visual dimension of 59–60 Welt im Film 10, 36, 37, 38, 81, 86, 94 no experiments (Keine Experimente) 27, 29, 229 Nora, Pierre 124, 184 normalization, project of 47 Not Without Us (Nicht ohne uns) 54 November Revolution 1918 51 Nuremberg Laws 43 occupation of France 194 of Germany 35 Occupation Statute 1949 3, 41 three West occupation zones 35–6 Ollenhauer, Erich 42, 82, 171, 178 On the Road with the Sampler Case (Mit dem Musterkoffer unterwegs) 228 opinion polling 51, 71 othering, of the Nazi period 256

Index 345 Panorama 19 Parliament TV (Parlamentsfernsehen) network 313 Parliamentary Council (Parlamentarischer Rat) 37, 223–4, 225 parliamentary democracy 40, 50–3 Partners in Freedom (Partner der Freiheit) 119–22 Paschen, Joachim 11, 18, 86 paternalism of Adenauer 45–6, 151–2, 168, 169, 263–5, 268 paternalistic leadership 48–9 paternalistic politics 48 The Path into the Future (Der Weg in die Zukunft) 3–4, 24, 30, 182, 184, 202–16 patriarchy of Adenauer 44, 272–3, 300, 308 patriarchal gender order 47 personality cults 151, 267, 278, 280 Pfister, Eugen 19, 26–7 podcasts 314 policy(ies) of exoneration and integration 93 media policies 11, 22, 60, 63–4 skepticism towards Adenauer’s 57–8 of Western integration 40, 41, 50 politics avoidance of by the German people 52 broadcasting systems and 11 conservative family 170, 312 as entertainment 16 Franco-German political rapprochement 185 of memory 307 paternalistic 48

political legacy of Adenauer 283, 293, 300, 301–2 political power and public opinion 63 political power and the Büro Otto Lenz 72–9 political public relations 12, 26 political sovereignty of the Federal Republic 115, 161 PR films and 10–14, 16, 18, 19, 311 the repositioning of Germany’s position in 236 of steered media 70 power film and 8 masculine 48 political and public opinion 63 political and the Büro Otto Lenz 72–9 the Press Office and 65 PR (public relations) films (see also names of individual films) Adenauer administration and 17, 39, 311 Adenauer and 4, 12, 14–16, 44–5, 116, 307–8 the benefits of democracy and 305–6 collective memory and 49 contracts for 92 deliberate combination of image and words 16–18 democracy and 10, 52, 312 Deutsche Wochenschau and 18, 20–2, 60, 87 diplomacy and 98–9 as entertainment 19 enumeration of successes 52 Federal Press Office and 65, 66–7, 89, 90, 93, 95, 96–7, 99–100, 143–4, 303, 304, 310–11

346 Index financing of 69, 90–1, 106, 133 foreign language versions 97, 98–9, 247–8, 249 as government channels 99–100, 176–7 legacy films 266–7 managing conflicting desires 40–4 mobile screening trucks 73, 78–9, 98, 259, 307 narratives of success 306 nation-building and 4–5, 39, 304, 305, 315 Otto Lenz and 72 persuasive effect of 18 politics and 10–14, 16, 18, 19, 311 portrayals of Adenauer 307–8 prior to 1953 24 the production process 89–99 as products of the newsreel industry 18–20 promoting Bonn 228 as propaganda 8, 310 as public relations (PR) statements 310 role of 3–7 screening outlets 98–9 selection of 24–5 soundtracks of 96, 236, 268, 269, 278, 291 staging West German democracy through 303–15 uncritical stance of 76, 144 underlying foundational values 50–4 on US state visits 102, 103 Western integration and 28, 297, 298 press Adenauer and the 63–4, 296 (see also media) Otto Lenz and the 69–70

Press Office. See Federal Press Office (Presse und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung) prisoners of war recasting of 173 repatriation of 29, 147, 149–50, 151–3, 157, 160, 164, 166, 167–8, 171–5, 178, 274 private realm withdrawal into 52 women and 170 propaganda Allied re-educational 9–10, 310 Cold War 258–9 German war 8, 9 nation-building and 10 National Socialist 63 of the Nazi party 9 Otto Lenz and 58, 66 period of democracy propaganda 5 PR films and 8, 310 propaganda companies (Propagandakompanien) 9 public relations and 10 second federal elections and 58 techniques of 4 term 13 Prosperity for All (Wohlstand für alle) 53 public broadcasting network 60 public opinion Federal Press Office and 72 media systems and 63 public relations (see also PR (public relations) films) activities of Otto Lenz 59, 99–100, 106 Adenauer and 65–6, 75, 76 defined 14 governmental 20–2 political 12, 26

Index 347 PR needs of the Federal Government 40–4 propaganda and 10 US-style 58, 73 Purzer, Manfred de Gaulle’s 1962 visit and 204 Deutsche Wochenschau and the federal government 83 Deutsche Wochenschau’s uncritical stance 61–2 Federal Press Office and 90 The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy and 133, 134, 142 Koblenzer Strasse 99–103 . . . and 246 rise of television and 20 role in Deutsche Wochenschau 89 Two Nations Reconcile and 188 race, America Revisited and 118 racism 256–8, 259 radio, central role of 60 rapprochement Franco-German 198, 203, 215, 306 socioeconomic 39 re-education period 25 re-educational propaganda 9–10, 310 re-experiencing 17–18 Reagan, Ronald 307 rearmament, West German 39–40, 54–5 reconciliation discourse of 30, 34, 185 Franco-German 182, 191, 193, 200, 202, 203, 206, 207, 212, 248, 306 reconciliation discourse 30, 34, 185 staging performative acts of at Franco-German memory spaces 183–5

symbolism of 196, 213–14, 216 redeemer figure, Adenauer as 48, 151, 275, 276, 280 refugees, German ethnic 35, 50–1 “Regarding the Question of a German Newsreel” 80 Reich Film Chamber (Reichsfilmkammer) 9 Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda) 9, 66 Reichstag fire 1933 51 Reimers, Karl Friedrich 158, 159 Reims, cathedral 200–1 relationships Franco-German 181–2, 185–7 German–German 256, 258 Germany and the Soviet Union 156, 158, 164 Germany and the US 29, 116–17, 120–1, 122–32, 144–5 West Germans and the Western Allies 37 religion Adenauer and 47–8, 151, 156, 165, 198, 271, 275 Christianity 151 Franco-German reconcilliation and 200, 202 repatriation of POWs and 175 in the Soviet Union 155–6, 165 Reporting from the Federal Capital (Aus der Bundeshauptstadt) 227 Reptilienfonds 68, 76, 91, 106 research on postwar newsreel, propaganda, and political PR film 25–7 restitution, to victims of persecution 255–6

348 Index reunification Adenauer and 234–5, 298 Bonn and 224 Germans desire for 41, 223 PR films and 28 US support for 122 Western integration and 41, 42, 77, 137, 305 Reuter, Ernst 37 Rhine river 208–9, 232, 241, 250, 259, 307 Riefenstahl, Leni 266–7 Rittersturz-conference 1948 222 Romantic Bonn (Romantisches Bonn) 227 Rosumek, Lars 12, 13–14, 45–6, 65, 66, 76 Rouen 197, 198 Ruge, Gerd 161, 168–9 Ruhr region 238 Ruttmann, Walther 250, 251 Saar region 50–1, 186 Schamoni, Peter 267 Schieder, Wolfgang 12 Schissler, Hanna 47 Schmidt, Carlo 170 Schnabel Filmproduktion, Hamburg 21 scholarship on postwar newsreel, propaganda, and political PR film 25–7 Schöneberg Rathaus 298 Schreiber, Hermann 184 Schröder, Gerhard 240, 242, 248, 252 Schröder, Hans-Jürgen 104, 108, 111, 112, 121 Schumacher, Frank 104 Schuman, Robert 209 Schumann Declaration (1950) 103, 186 Schumann Plan 1950 54, 77, 78 Schumann, Robert 208

Schwarz, Uta 7–8, 11, 26, 44, 46, 64, 82, 83, 89, 152, 176, 177, 265, 270, 311 self-esteem, West German national 214 self-image, of Germans 208 self-representation, of the early Federal Republic 6, 82 Selling the Economic Miracle 53 Shake Hands with America (Handschlag mit Amerika) 82 Shortt, Linda 49 Skibowski, Klaus Otto 123, 127 Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) Deutsche Wochenschau and 12, 82, 85 The Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy and 142–3 opposition to Adenauer’s policies 53–4, 56 Parliamentary Council and 37 the Press Office and 68 repatriation of POWs and 171 second federal elections and 58 social market economy 53–4 social networks 313 Society for a Free Europe in Bonn (Gesellschaft Freies Europa) 77, 106 sociopolitical shifts, of the Adenauer years 170 soldiers, missing in action 178–9 sole representation (Alleinvertretungsanspruch) 112 Sommer, Doris 27, 34 soundtracks PR films and 96, 236, 268, 269, 278, 291 use of Jazz music 118–19

Index 349 sovereignty political of the Federal Republic 115, 161 West German 116 Soviet Union Adenauer visiting in 1955 29, 147 (see also Meeting in the Kremlin . . .) as an adversary 35, 36–7, 306 attempts to undermine the West 36 diplomacy with the 152–3, 156, 171 religion in 155–6, 165 Soviet Union-Germany relationships 156, 158, 164 special feature films (Sonderfilme) 88 Spicka, Mark 53, 57–8, 149 Spiegel affair 1962 60, 310 Der Spiegel magazine 19, 60, 67, 79, 83, 124, 168, 181, 194, 263–5 Springer press 140, 143 stability discourse 29, 34, 102–3, 114, 123, 133, 135, 253 state visits of Bhumibol Adulyadej 237, 239–40 de Gaulle to West Germany 1962 24, 30, 202–16 (see also Path into the Future) Eisenhower’s visit to Bonn 1959 122–6 to the Federal Republic 49 filming of 90–1 Kennedy to West Germany 19, 132–44, 254 (see also Federal Republic Greets President Kennedy . . .) Nehru 1956 237–8 to Paris in 1962 181 to the Soviet Union 29, 147 (see also Meeting in the Kremlin . . .) symbolism of 306–7

to the US 102 (see also A Man Advocates for his People; America Revisited; Aside of Diplomatic Protocol) to the US Kennedy administration 126–32 Steininger, Rudolf 11 Stoll, Erich 83, 92–3 Strauss, Franz Josef 60, 274 student movement 60 Sudeten Germans 206 suffering, German 148–9, 175, 196 symbolism the Adenauer-Mercedes 162 Christian 151 ecclesiastical and Adenauer 1–3, 5, 48 of the Foreign Office 252 of Kennedy’s visit 138 quasi-sacral 128 of reconciliation 196, 213–14, 216 of Reims 200–1 religious 176 representing Adenauer 274 of the Rhine 232, 241, 250, 259, 307 of state visits 306–7 symbolic language 159–76, 306 West German 117, 124, 125 Tagesschau 16, 20, 88 Tea Talks 63–4 technology, camera 96 television 1950s 60 ARD television network 16, 19, 20, 88, 219 Deutschland-Fernsehen TV network 60 newsreels and 19–20, 88 the state and 313 Third Reich (1933–45) Adenauer and 63

350 Index legacy films 266–7, 279–80 masculine leadership of 302 media professionals 93 military imagery of 210 re-instalment of officials of 43 restitution to victims of persecution 255–6 West German’s opinions of 51 Thyssen steel plant, Duisburg, de Gaulle’s visit to 212–14 Tiedemann, Heinrich von 127, 242–4, 255, 256, 257–8 title 300 budget 68–9, 76, 91, 106 title 315 budgets 91 trade, in the US 117–18 Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany of 1990 (Zwei-plus-Vier Vertrag) 40n.11 Trede, Gerhard 96 Tri-Zone Germany 41 Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens) 267 Truman, Harry S. 35 trust rebuilding trust in Germany 112–13 of the US in Germany 116–17, 121, 122 Two Nations Reconcile (Zwei Völker versöhnen sich) 30, 91, 99, 182, 183, 184, 187–202, 307 Ueberschär, Bernhard 57 UFA newsreel division 267 Ufa-Tonwoche (Nr. 451) 31, 267, 278–80 Ufa-Wochenschau newsreel 9 Uhlig, A.W. 228–9, 231, 284–5 United States (see also Visit of Trust . . .; Welcome Dr. Adenauer) Adenauer and 17–18, 66–8, 102–3, 104, 109–11

diplomacy with Germany 119–22 and the Federal Republic 101–3, 104, 115, 253–4 German–American relations 29, 116–17, 120–1, 122–32, 144–5 modern political PR of 65–6 from occupier to Cold War ally 122–6 supporting Adenauers reelection 104, 105, 119 trade with Germany 117–18 Universum Film AG (UFA) 8–9 values conservative family values 47 foundational 33, 44–9, 50–4 Verdun 193 Vichy regime 192 victims, Germany as a nation of 148–9, 149–50, 163–4, 172–5, 176, 177, 196, 197, 307 Villa Collina, Italy 294–6 Visit of Trust (Besuch des Vertrauens) 122–6, 237, 304 Visiting Bonn: A Report from the Political Life in the Federal Capital (Zu Gast in Bonn: Ein Bericht aus dem politischen Leben der Bundeshauptstadt) 3–4, 30, 93, 94, 221, 228–41 Vogel, Rolf 289, 291 Voigt, Jürgen 8, 26 Von Bonn nach Berlin (From Bonn to Berlin) 223 Die Waage 54 Die Wacht am Rhein (The Watch on the Rhine) 187 Walker, Horst 64–5, 67, 68 The Way Out (Der Weg nach draussen) 78 Weidemann, Hans 9

Index 351 Weimar Republic (1919–33) 8, 37–8, 51, 62–3 Welcome Dr. Adenauer 97, 126–32, 144, 271 Die Welt 144 Welt im Bild newsreel 3, 86 Welt im Film (World in Film) newsreels 10, 36, 37, 38, 81, 86, 94 West Germany (see also Federal Republic) Americanization in 119 division of 42 formation of the West German nation 37 (see also nationbuilding) Western integration (Westbindung) policy of 40, 41, 50 PR films and 28, 297, 298 reunification through 41, 42, 77, 137, 305 and the US 103 When Freedom Called (Als die Freiheit rief) 55 Wiers, Heinz 15, 16, 21, 86, 89–90, 115, 140, 246, 290–1

Wilhelm II 8, 266, 267 Wise, Michael Z. 251 women absence of in politics 311 private realm and 170 re-domestication of 47 World War I, collective memory and 192–3, 196–7, 217 World War II aftermath of 35 collective memory and 110–11, 182 denial/suppression of the past 47 Würmeling, Franz-Josef 47, 170 young nations (junge Völker) 237–9 YouTube 314 ZAK 313 ZDF History 14 Die Zeit publication 79, 202, 224 Zentrum party 37–8 Zimmermann, Peter 9

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